Down-regulation of TRPV6 Is Associated With Adverse Prognosis in Hepatocellular Carcinoma Treated With Curative Resection.

BACKGROUND/AIM: Transient receptor potential vanilloid 6 (TRPV6), an endothelial Ca-selective entry channel, is expressed in various cancer types, and a selective TRPV6 inhibitor is currently being investigated in a clinical trial. However, TRPV6 expression in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has not been reported.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

We evaluated TRPV6 expression in 219 cases of HCC and analyzed its association with clinicopathological parameters and prognostic significance. TRPV6 mRNA expression was compared between HCC and non-tumor liver tissues using various public datasets, and its prognostic effect was examined in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) cohort.

RESULTS

Low TRPV6 expression was found in 37.4% of patients, which was significantly associated with adverse histologic features, and patients with low TRPV6 expression had shorter recurrence-free and disease-free survival. TRPV6 mRNA expression was consistently lower in HCC compared to non-tumor liver samples in public datasets, at the whole tissue level as well as single-cell level. Patients with low TRPV6 expression in the TCGA cohort had shorter progression-free survival.

CONCLUSION

TRPV6 expression is down-regulated in HCCs and associated with a poor prognosis. TRPV6 may be a prognostic biomarker in HCC.