Lee Hyunjong, Choi Joon Young, Joung Je-Gun, Joh Jae-Won, Kim Jong Man, Hyun Seung Hyup
Department of Nuclear Medicine, Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea.
Samsung Genome Institute, Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea.
Front Oncol. 2022 Jan 31;12:845900. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2022.845900. eCollection 2022.
The prognostic value of F-18 fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography (FDG PET/CT) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) was established in previous reports. However, there is no evidence suggesting the prognostic value of transcriptomes associated with tumor FDG uptake in HCC. It was aimed to elucidate metabolic genes and functions associated with FDG uptake, followed by assessment of those prognostic value.
Sixty HCC patients with Edmondson-Steiner grade II were included. FDG PET/CT scans were performed before any treatment. RNA sequencing data were obtained from tumor and normal liver tissue. Associations between each metabolism-associated gene and tumor FDG uptake were investigated by Pearson correlation analyses. A novel score between glucose and lipid metabolism-associated gene expression was calculated. In The Cancer Genome Atlas Liver Hepatocellular Carcinoma dataset, the prognostic power of selected metabolism-associated genes and a novel score was evaluated for external validation.
Nine genes related to glycolysis and the signaling pathway showed positive correlations with tumor FDG uptake; 21 genes related to fatty acid metabolism and the signaling pathway demonstrated negative correlations. Seven potential biomarker genes, , , , , , , and were identified. A metabolic gene expression balance score according to the dominance between glucose and lipid metabolism demonstrated good prognostic value in HCC.
The transcriptomic evidence of this study strongly supports the prognostic power of FDG PET/CT and indicates the potential usefulness of FDG PET/CT imaging biomarkers to select appropriate patients for metabolism-targeted therapy in HCC.
先前的报告已证实F-18氟脱氧葡萄糖正电子发射断层扫描/计算机断层扫描（FDG PET/CT）在肝细胞癌（HCC）中的预后价值。然而，尚无证据表明与肿瘤FDG摄取相关的转录组在HCC中的预后价值。本研究旨在阐明与FDG摄取相关的代谢基因和功能，随后评估其预后价值。
纳入60例Edmondson-Steiner分级为II级的HCC患者。在任何治疗前均进行FDG PET/CT扫描。从肿瘤组织和正常肝组织获取RNA测序数据。通过Pearson相关分析研究每个代谢相关基因与肿瘤FDG摄取之间的关联。计算了一个与葡萄糖和脂质代谢相关基因表达的新评分。在癌症基因组图谱肝细胞癌数据集中，评估所选代谢相关基因和新评分的预后能力以进行外部验证。
9个与糖酵解和信号通路相关的基因与肿瘤FDG摄取呈正相关；21个与脂肪酸代谢和信号通路相关的基因呈负相关。鉴定出7个潜在的生物标志物基因，分别为、、、、、、和。根据葡萄糖和脂质代谢优势得出的代谢基因表达平衡评分在HCC中显示出良好的预后价值。
本研究的转录组学证据有力地支持了FDG PET/CT的预后能力，并表明FDG PET/CT成像生物标志物在选择合适的HCC患者进行代谢靶向治疗方面具有潜在用途。
