Liver-enriched Genes are Associated with the Prognosis of Patients with Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Binghua Li,Decai Yu,Yuchen Sun,Gang Meng,Shaohe Wang,Jiwu Wei,Liyuan Qian,Tiancheng Xu,Yitao Ding,Chaohui Liu

doi:10.1038/s41598-018-29237-5

Binghua Li, Decai Yu + Show 8 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-29237-5

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Journal: Scientific Reports	Publication Date: Jul 25, 2018
Citations: 16	License type: open-access

Affiliation: Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital, Nanjing University

Abstract

Tissue-enriched genes are highly expressed in one particular tissue type and represent distinct physiological processes. The dynamic profile of tissue-enriched genes during tumorigenesis and progression remains largely unstudied. Here, we identified tissue-enriched genes from 12 tissue types based on RNA sequencing data from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), and found that the liver had the largest number of such genes among the 12 tissue types. The characteristics of liver-enriched genes were further investigated. Most liver-enriched genes were downregulated and metabolism-related genes, which were associated with pathological stage and dedifferentiation in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Hypermethylation might be a mechanism underlying the downregulation of liver-enriched genes. We constructed a liver-enriched gene set and demonstrated that it is associated with the prognosis of the patients with HCC both in the TCGA cohort and the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) datasets. Moreover, we discovered that the degree of the dissimilarity between tumors and normal tissues was correlated with the prognosis of patients with HCC and the biological behaviours of the tumors. These results will help identify prognostic biomarkers of patients with HCC, and enhance our understanding of the molecular mechanisms of hepatocarcinogenesis and progression.

Highlights

The expression of most genes varies between different tissue types and between different physiological and pathophysiological conditions[1,2]
We constructed an liver-enriched genes (LEGs) set that was associated with the prognosis of patients with Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and demonstrated that the divergence between tumors and normal tissues was related to the prognosis of patients with HCC and the biological behaviours of the tumors
We determined that patients with a large expression distance tended to be females, younger age and low body weight, which suggests a correlation between the tumor and its host. These results indicate that the divergence between tumors and normal tissues predicted the prognosis of patients with HCC and possibly affected the biological behaviors of the tumors

Summary

Introduction

The expression of most genes varies between different tissue types and between different physiological and pathophysiological conditions[1,2]. The results revealed the important role of the liver in TEGs. we analyzed the characteristics of the liver-enriched genes (LEGs) and determined that hypermethylation might partly explain the downregulation of LEGs. We constructed an LEG set that was associated with the prognosis of patients with HCC and demonstrated that the divergence between tumors and normal tissues was related to the prognosis of patients with HCC and the biological behaviours of the tumors. We constructed an LEG set that was associated with the prognosis of patients with HCC and demonstrated that the divergence between tumors and normal tissues was related to the prognosis of patients with HCC and the biological behaviours of the tumors These results offer some integrative insight into the understanding the molecular mechanism of HCC development and its progression, and might contribute to screen prognostic biomarkers in patients with HCC

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