Effect of an lncRNA-associated ceRNA regulatory network in MVI-positive hepatocellular carcinoma on their sensitivity to sorafenib.

Abstract

e16615 Background: Microvascular invasion (MVI) is a histological feature of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) related to aggressiveness. But different sensitivity to first line targeted drug, sorafenib, in MVI+ HCC has been observed. Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) can act as microRNA (miRNA) sponges to regulate protein-coding gene expression; so lncRNAs are considered as a major part of competitive endogenous RNA (ceRNA) network and have attracted growing attention. We explored the regulatory mechanisms and functional roles of lncRNAs as ceRNAs in MVI+ HCC, and ceRNA network’s potential impact on prognosis and sensitivity to sorafenib in MVI+ HCC patient. Methods: We studied the expression profiles, prognostic value of lncRNA, miRNA, and mRNA from MVI+ HCC patients, established a prognosis-related network of dysregulated ceRNAs and analyzed its role in sensitivity to sorafenib and radiomics features by bioinformatics methods. Results: A ceRNA network including 13 lncRNAs, 3 miRNAs, and 2 mRNAs specific to MVI+ HCC was established. 6 lncRNAs ( ARHGEF7-AS1, ATP2B2-IT1, LINC00330, MUC2, TLR8-AS1 and ZNF385D-AS1), 2 miRNAs ( hsa-mir-206 and hsa-mir-373) and two mRNAs ( PAX3, SIK1) were prognostic biomarkers for MVI+ HCC. PAX3 was an unfavorable prognostic gene (HR = 1.9, 95%CI 1.01 ~ 3.60), while SIK1 favored the prognosis (HR = 0.4, 95%CI 0.19 ~ 0.85). PAX3 as a stratification in recurrence predicting model was used to identify MVI+ HCC with high or low recurrence risk. Datamining into the dataset of phase 3 STORM trial showed no difference in the influence of PAX3 level on the outcome between sorafenib HCC group and placebo HCC group. However, deep datamining into GDSC dataset revealed our high PAX3 group in MVI+ HCC related to resistance to sorafenib ( P = 0.0039). Radiomics features were extracted from CT of MVI+ HCC, and texture analysis in MVI+ HCCs is ongoing. Conclusions: The proposed ceRNA network may help elucidate the regulatory mechanism by which lncRNAs function as ceRNAs and contribute to the pathogenesis of MVI in HCC. Importantly, the candidate lncRNAs, miRNAs, and mRNAs involved in the ceRNA network have shown to be potential therapeutic targets and prognostic biomarkers for MVI+ HCC. PAX3 might play a vital role in the mechanism of sorafenib resistance in MVI+ HCC, exclusively, this aggressive HCC subtype. The ongoing experiments on radiomics might add potent supports to identify sorafenib sensitive MVI+ HCC.