Abstract

RNA editing is a widespread post-transcriptional mechanism to introduce single nucleotide changes to RNA in human cancers. Here, we characterized the global RNA editing profiles of 373 hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and 50 adjacent normal liver samples from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and revealed that most editing events tend to occur in minor percentage of samples with moderate editing degrees (20–30%). Moreover, these RNA editing prefer to be A-to-I RNA editing in protein coding genes, especially in 3′UTR regions. Considering the association between DNA mutation and RNA editing, our analysis found that RNA editing maybe a complementary event for DNA mutation of HCC risk genes in HCC patients. We next identified 454 HCC-related editing sites, and many locate on the same genes with the same editing patterns. The functional consequences of editing revealed 2,086 functional editing sites and demonstrated that most editing in coding regions are non-synonymous variations. Furthermore, our results showed that editing in the 3′UTR regions tend to influence miRNA–target binding, and the editing degree seems to be negatively correlated with gene expression. Finally, we found that 46 HCC-related editing sites with consequence are able to distinguish the prognosis differences of HCC patients, suggesting their clinical relevance. Together, our results highlight RNA editing as a valuable molecular resource for investigating HCC mechanisms and clinical treatments.

Highlights

  • Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a kind of malignant tumor with high mortality

  • Han et al reported just a few A-to-I RNA editing in the coding sequence (CDS) regions; here we identified about 5% editing events in the CDS regions, which include many other types of RNA editing

  • We found that 98.51% mutation sites occurred in only a single hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patient

Read more

Summary

Introduction

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a kind of malignant tumor with high mortality. It ranks third among all cancer-related mortality in the world. The high mortality rate of HCC is mainly due to it being asymptomatic in the early stage and the lack of effective treatments for even mid-term patients. This poses a great threat to the patient’s life and brings heavy economic burdens to the society and families. It is of great significance to clarify the pathogenesis of HCC as soon as possible, and formulate more effective strategies for clinical diagnosis and treatment. Previous studies on the pathogenic mechanisms of cancer suggested that DNA mutations are a driving factor in cancer development; many HCC tumor samples

Objectives
Methods
Results
Conclusion
Full Text
Published version (Free)

Talk to us

Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have

Schedule a call