Wang Yulu, Setiawan Maria F, Liu Hongde, Dakal Tikam Chand, Liu Hongjia, Ge Fangfang, Rudan Oliver, Chen Peng, Zhao Chunxia, Gonzalez-Carmona Maria A, Kornek Miroslaw T, Strassburg Christian P, Schmid Matthias, Maciaczyk Jarek, Sharma Amit, Schmidt-Wolf Ingo G H
Department of Integrated Oncology, Center for Integrated Oncology (CIO), University Hospital Bonn, 53127 Bonn, Germany.
State Key Laboratory of Bioelectronics, School of Biological Science & Medical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China.
Biology (Basel). 2022 Aug 4;11(8):1174. doi: 10.3390/biology11081174.
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is at the forefront of the global cancer burden, and biomarkers for HCC are constantly being sought. Interestingly, RGS (Regulators of G protein signaling) proteins, which negatively regulate GPCR signaling, have been associated with various cancers, with some members of the RGS family being associated with liver cancer as well. Considering this, we investigated the role of RGS20 as a potential prognostic marker in 28 different cancer types with special emphasis on HCC. By using the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) data, our analysis revealed that (a) RGS20 was strongly upregulated in tumor tissue compared with adjacent normal tissue of HCC patients; (b) RGS20 was strongly associated with some important clinical parameters such as alpha-fetoprotein and tumor grade in the HCC patients; (c) besides HCC (p < 0.001), RGS20 was found to be an important factor for survival in four other cancers (clear renal cell carcinoma: p < 0.001, lung adenocarcinoma: p = 0.004, mesothelioma: p = 0.039, ovarian serous cystadenocarcinoma: p = 0.048); (d) RGS20 was found to be significantly associated with some tumor-related signaling pathways and long intergenic non-coding RNAs (lincRNAs: LINC00511, PVT1, MIR4435-2HG, BCYRN1, and MAPKAPK5-AS1) that exhibit oncogenic potential. Taken together, we showed that RGS20 correlates with a few HCC-associated lincRNAs harboring oncogenic potential and is markedly upregulated in HCC patients. Our analysis further supports the putative function of RGS proteins, particularly RGS20, in cancer.
肝细胞癌（HCC）是全球癌症负担的前沿问题，人们一直在不断寻找HCC的生物标志物。有趣的是，对G蛋白偶联受体（GPCR）信号传导起负调节作用的RGS（G蛋白信号调节剂）蛋白已与多种癌症相关联，RGS家族的一些成员也与肝癌有关。考虑到这一点，我们研究了RGS20作为28种不同癌症类型潜在预后标志物的作用，特别关注HCC。通过使用癌症基因组图谱（TCGA）和基因表达综合数据库（GEO）的数据，我们的分析显示：（a）与HCC患者的癌旁正常组织相比，肿瘤组织中RGS20强烈上调；（b）RGS20与HCC患者的一些重要临床参数如甲胎蛋白和肿瘤分级密切相关；（c）除HCC外（p < 0.001），还发现RGS20是其他四种癌症生存的重要因素（透明肾细胞癌：p < 0.001，肺腺癌：p = 0.004，间皮瘤：p = 0.039，卵巢浆液性囊腺癌：p = 0.048）；（d）发现RGS20与一些具有致癌潜力的肿瘤相关信号通路和长链基因间非编码RNA（lincRNAs：LINC00511、PVT1、MIR4435 - 2HG、BCYRN1和MAPKAPK5 - AS1）显著相关。综上所述，我们表明RGS20与一些具有致癌潜力的HCC相关lincRNAs相关，并且在HCC患者中明显上调。我们的分析进一步支持了RGS蛋白，特别是RGS20在癌症中的假定功能。
