Establishment of a prognostic model of hepatocellular carcinoma based on inflammatory factor-related genes and prognosis-related characteristics

Abstract

Abstract Background:This study established oneprognostic prediction model for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) using inflammatory factor-associatedgenes to forecast the HCC patients’ clinical prognosis more accurately. Methods: From Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO), the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), as well asInternational Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC), gene expression profiles of HCC patients were acquired, and from gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) database, inflammatory factors-associated genes were downloaded. Through weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA), key genes were identified. Through Univariate Cox as well as the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression analyses, prognostic inflammatory factors-associated gene signatureswere identified. The predictive value of prognostic features was verified via the Kaplan-Meier (K-M) and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analyses. CIBERSORT analysis was conducted for assessing associations of risk models with immune cells. Line-and-trace plots were drawn for predicting the HCC patients’ survival probability according to risk models. Results: Totally 6 genes (ATP2A3, CMTM7, EFEMP1, GMIP, HLA. Prognostic characteristics of DPB1, and LAMB1) were selected for establishing predictive models and verifying their prognostic value and their correlation with clinical features. The K-M curve verified the area under the curve (AUC) of TCGA and two GEO and ICGC-JP datasets (P<0.0001, P=0.0086, 0.00013, and 0.00093, respectively). The prediction accuracy of the risk model was also verified. A line plot was drawn for predicting the HCC patients’ survival, and the calibration curve revealeda satisfactory predictability. Lastly, the functional analysis also revealed immune state differencebetween two different risk groups. Conclusion: This study established and validated one new inflammatory factor-associated prognostic gene trait that could contribute to a more accurate individualized prediction of HCC patients’ survival.