Shen Shen, Wang Yanfang
Gene Hospital of Henan Province, Precision Medicine Center, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, Henan, 450052, People's Republic of China.
Department of Infectious Diseases, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, Henan Province, People's Republic of China.
Int J Gen Med. 2021 Nov 18;14:8463-8472. doi: 10.2147/IJGM.S334033. eCollection 2021.
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a common clinical malignancy. Recent studies reported that E2F transcription factor 2 (E2F2) plays a significant role in tumor progression. However, its expression and biological function in HCC are still unclear. Therefore, we explored the relationship between E2F2 expression and tumor progression in HCC.
In this study, we utilized some online tools to explore the E2F2 expression in pan-carcinoma and HCC. The association of E2F2 expression with the clinical characteristics and prognosis of HCC was further studied. In addition, we explored the co-expressed genes of E2F2 and mined the positively/negatively corrected significant genes and excavated the possible functions. Meanwhile, the hub gene set was constructed based on protein-protein interaction (PPI) network, and the relationship between E2F2 and immunity was discovered.
We observed that the expression level of E2F2 was generally upregulated in HCC. However, E2F2 expression was not significantly different between HCC and normal tissues in regard to the disease stage 4. Furthermore, we also observed the poor prognosis in patients with high E2F2 expression. The co-expressed genes of E2F2 were identified and further detected. Thereafter, we identified the positively/negatively corrected significant genes and constructed the hub gene network of E2F2 based on PPI network. We also found that E2F2 expression was positively correlated with the infiltration levels of CD4+ T, CD8+ T cells, macrophages, neutrophils, and dendritic cells.
Our findings suggested that E2F2 could be a potential prognostic factor for HCC, which could provide a therapeutic target for the molecular treatment of HCC.
肝细胞癌（HCC）是一种常见的临床恶性肿瘤。最近的研究报道，E2F转录因子2（E2F2）在肿瘤进展中起重要作用。然而，其在HCC中的表达及生物学功能仍不清楚。因此，我们探讨了E2F2表达与HCC肿瘤进展之间的关系。
在本研究中，我们利用一些在线工具探索E2F2在泛癌和HCC中的表达。进一步研究E2F2表达与HCC临床特征及预后的相关性。此外，我们探索了E2F2的共表达基因，挖掘正/负相关的显著基因并挖掘其可能的功能。同时，基于蛋白质-蛋白质相互作用（PPI）网络构建枢纽基因集，并发现E2F2与免疫的关系。
我们观察到HCC中E2F2的表达水平普遍上调。然而，在疾病4期，HCC与正常组织之间的E2F2表达无显著差异。此外，我们还观察到E2F2高表达患者预后较差。鉴定了E2F2的共表达基因并进一步检测。此后，我们鉴定了正/负相关的显著基因，并基于PPI网络构建了E2F2的枢纽基因网络。我们还发现E2F2表达与CD4+T、CD8+T细胞、巨噬细胞、中性粒细胞和树突状细胞的浸润水平呈正相关。
我们的研究结果表明，E2F2可能是HCC的一个潜在预后因素，可为HCC的分子治疗提供治疗靶点。
