Department of Clinical Laboratory, Xijing Hospital, Air Force Military Medical University, Xian, China.
Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery, Xijing Hospital, Air Force Military Medical University, Xian, China.
Dis Markers. 2022 Aug 24;2022:5638675. doi: 10.1155/2022/5638675. eCollection 2022.
Globally, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common causes of cancer-associated mortalities. The clinical outcome of HCC patients remains poor due to distant metastasis and recurrence. In recent years, growing evidences have confirmed that the coiled-coil domain-containing (CCDC) family proteins are involved in the progression of several diseases. However, the expression and clinical significance of the coiled-coil domain-containing 137 (CCDC137) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) have not been investigated. Level 3 mRNA expression profiles and clinicopathological data were obtained in TCGA-LIHC. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were screened between 371 HCC and 50 nontumor specimens. The prognostic value of CCDC137 was analyzed in HCC patients. The correlations between CCDC137 and cancer immune infiltrates were investigated. In this study, a total of 2897 DEGs were obtained: 2451 genes were significantly upregulated and 446 genes were significantly downregulated. KEGG assays revealed that these DEGs were involved in tumor progression. Among 2897 DEGs, we found that CCDC137 expression was distinctly increased in HCC specimens compared with nontumor specimens. A high level of CCDC137 expression was related to an advanced tumor stage and grade. Moreover, patients with higher levels of CCDC137 expression had a shorter overall survival and disease-free survival than patients with lower CCDC137 levels. CCDC137 expression was positively correlated with infiltrating levels of several immune cells, such as CD8 T cells and Th2 cells. Finally, in vitro experiments confirmed that CCDC137 expression was highly expressed in HCC cells, and its knockdown suppressed the proliferation of HCC cells. Taken together, our findings revealed that CCDC137 might be used as a biomarker for immune infiltration and poor prognosis in HCC, which offered fresh insight on potential therapies for HCC.
全球范围内，肝细胞癌（HCC）是癌症相关死亡率的最常见原因之一。由于远处转移和复发，HCC 患者的临床结局仍然较差。近年来，越来越多的证据证实卷曲螺旋结构域蛋白家族（CCDC）蛋白参与了多种疾病的进展。然而，卷曲螺旋结构域蛋白 137（CCDC137）在肝细胞癌（HCC）中的表达和临床意义尚未得到研究。从 TCGA-LIHC 中获取了 3 级 mRNA 表达谱和临床病理数据。在 371 例 HCC 和 50 例非肿瘤标本之间筛选差异表达基因（DEGs）。分析 HCC 患者中 CCDC137 的预后价值。研究 CCDC137 与癌症免疫浸润的相关性。在这项研究中，共获得 2897 个 DEGs：2451 个基因显著上调，446 个基因显著下调。KEGG 分析表明这些 DEGs参与了肿瘤的进展。在 2897 个 DEGs 中，我们发现 CCDC137 在 HCC 标本中的表达明显高于非肿瘤标本。高水平的 CCDC137 表达与肿瘤的晚期阶段和分级相关。此外，CCDC137 表达水平较高的患者总生存期和无病生存期短于 CCDC137 表达水平较低的患者。CCDC137 表达与 CD8 T 细胞和 Th2 细胞等几种免疫细胞的浸润水平呈正相关。最后，体外实验证实 CCDC137 在 HCC 细胞中高表达，其敲低抑制了 HCC 细胞的增殖。总之，我们的研究结果表明，CCDC137 可能作为 HCC 免疫浸润和预后不良的生物标志物，为 HCC 的潜在治疗提供了新的思路。
