Abstract
Nuf2 participates in the regulation of cell apoptosis and proliferation by regulating the binding of centromere and spindle microtubules to achieve the correct separation of chromosomes. Previous reports have suggested that Nuf2 may play a role in various human cancers. However, the mechanism and function of Nuf2 in the development of Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains uncertain. This study investigated the prognostic potential of Nuf2 and its relation with immune cell infiltration in HCC. Nuf2 expression in tumor cells was examined using the TIMER and Oncomine databases, and its prognostic potential was assessed via the Kaplan-Meier plotter and GEPIA databases. The relationships between Nuf2 and tumor immune infiltration were analyzed using TIMER. The relationships between Nuf2 and biomarkers of tumor immune infiltration were analyzed using TIMER and GEPIA. Here we revealed that Nuf2 expression increased in tumor tissues containing HCC, and this correlated with poor relapse-free survival, disease-specific survival, progression-free survival, and overall survival in patients with HCC regardless of grades, genders, races, drinking behaviors and other clinical factors. Additionally, high expression of Nuf2 was positively correlated with differential immune cell infiltration and various immune biomarkers. Our work demonstrated that Nuf2 could be a potential prognostic biomarker and could be related to tumor immune cell infiltration in HCC.
Highlights
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), caused by factors such as alcoholic hepatitis, chronic hepatitis B and hepatitis C infections, and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, has become one of the most commonly diagnosed cancers [1,2,3,4]
Analysis of TCGA RNA-seq data in TIMER database, we found consistent results, i.e. the expression of Nuf2 in HCC was significantly higher than that in normal tissue, as well as other 16 tumor tissues (Figure 1B), suggesting that Nuf2 may play a role in tumorigenesis, especially in HCC, and has the potential to be a diagnostic gene for liver cancer and other cancers
Through a series of bioinformatics analysis with the publicly accessible online databases, we investigated the expression levels of Nuf2 in HCC and corresponding normal tissues, and the effect of Nuf2 expression on survival of prognosis and immune cell infiltration
Summary
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), caused by factors such as alcoholic hepatitis, chronic hepatitis B and hepatitis C infections, and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, has become one of the most commonly diagnosed cancers [1,2,3,4]. Nuf promotes the tumorigenesis and tumor development and is highly expressed in various human cancers, including serous adenocarcinoma, renal cell carcinoma, cholangiocarcinoma, and colorectal, lung, ovarian, gastric, and bladder cancers [8,9,10,11,12,13]. High Nuf expression has been reported to correlate with poor prognosis in non-small cell carcinoma patients [10]. Nuf can function as a potential biomarker in human tumor diagnosis and immunotherapy [10]. These findings strongly imply a potential function of Nuf in tumorigenesis. The mechanism and role of Nuf in the development of HCC remains uncertain
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