High Ribonucleotide Reductase M2 Expression as an Independent Prognostic Biomarker and Correlated with Immune Infiltrates in Live Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Abstract

Hepatocellular carcinoma (LIHC) is a prevalent cancer worldwide. High expression of Ribonucleotide reductase M2 (RRM2), a gene expressed in various tumors including LIHC, has been associated with poor prognosis, yet its correlation with immune cell infiltration in LIHC remains unclear. We aimed to develop a prognosis model for patient prognosis analysis and immunotherapy using RRM2 expression data and corresponding clinical data collected from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. Patients were divided into high- and low-risk groups based on their median risk score. Our analysis revealed that high expression of RRM2 was associated with T-stage, pathological stage, histologic grade, AFP levels, and age. Further analysis showed that cell cycle checkpoints, B cell receptor, cell cycle, MHC class II antigen, cancer pathway, and TP53 were differentially enriched in the RRM2 high expression phenotype. Additionally, RRM2 correlated with the majority of immune cell infiltration levels and was positively correlated with Th2 cells and negatively correlated with neutrophil cells, DC, CD8 T cells, and NK cells. The levels of these immune cells were significantly different between the RRM2 high and low expression groups. Our study suggests that overexpression of RRM2 is associated with poor prognosis in LIHC and may represent a valuable prognostic biomarker for this cancer.