Abstract
Chaperonin containing TCP1 subunit 7 (CCT7) regulates the expression of many tumor-related proteins. We investigated the diagnostic and prognostic value of CCT7 expression for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). In datasets from The Cancer Genome Atlas and the Gene Expression Omnibus, CCT7 mRNA levels were greater in HCC tissues than adjacent normal tissues, and these results were validated using immunohistochemistry. In patients with early-stage disease and low alpha-fetoprotein expression, CCT7 expression was still higher in HCC tissues than normal tissues. Receiver operating characteristic curve analyses indicated that CCT7 expression had better diagnostic value than alpha-fetoprotein for HCC patients with early-stage disease and low alpha-fetoprotein expression. The positive predictive value of CCT7 expression was higher than that of alpha-fetoprotein expression. Higher CCT7 mRNA and protein levels were independent risk factors for poorer overall and recurrence-free survival in HCC patients. Greater methylation of the CpG site cg19515186 was associated with better overall survival in HCC patients. Genes co-expressed with CCT7 were upregulated in HCC and associated with poorer overall survival. Gene Ontology, Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes and Gene Set Enrichment Analyses demonstrated that CCT7 expression correlated with spliceosome signaling. These findings demonstrate that CCT7 has diagnostic and prognostic value for HCC.
Highlights
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignant tumors, and has caused a substantial economic and health burden around the world for many years
Survival curves demonstrated that higher containing TCP1 subunit 7 (CCT7) mRNA levels were associated with poorer overall survival (OS) (Figure 1E) and recurrence-free survival (RFS; Figure 1F) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients
CCT7 was found to be highly expressed in HCC tissues in a bioinformatic analysis [15], the present study is the first systematic investigation of the diagnostic value, clinical significance and function of CCT7 in HCC
Summary
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignant tumors, and has caused a substantial economic and health burden around the world for many years. According to data released by the American Cancer Society in 2021, HCC is the fifth leading cause of cancerrelated mortality, with a five-year survival rate of less than 20% in all stages [1]. The poor prognosis of HCC has mainly been attributed to the low diagnostic rate in the early stage of the disease [2]; most HCC patients have already missed the opportunity for potentially curative therapeutic interventions by the time they are diagnosed. It is critical to identify more sensitive molecular biomarkers to diagnose early-stage HCC and improve patients’ prognoses. CCT3 was shown to promote HCC progression by functioning upstream of Yes-associated protein and transcription factor CP2, and was suggested as a potential therapeutic target and biomarker for HCC [8]. CCT7 was found to be overexpressed and associated with worse survival in HCC patients; the clinical prognostic/diagnostic value and function of this gene have not yet been illustrated [15, 16]
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