Identification of prognostic markers for hepatocellular carcinoma based on miRNA expression profiles

Publication date: Available online 22 June 2019Source: Life SciencesAuthor(s): Xiaoou Wang, Jing Gao, Bin Zhou, Junqing Xie, Gongting Zhou, Yiming ChenAbstractAimsThe aim of the study was to identify key miRNAs related to hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and then to explore their potential function and clinical significance.Materials and methodsThe miRNA expression profiles of 387 HCC and 62 normal liver tissues were obtained from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) databases. GEO2R tool and edgeR package in R/Bioconductor were used to screen out HCC-related miRNAs. VennDiagram package was used to identify key miRNAs related to HCC. The miRWalk tool and multiple R packages, such as pROC and survival, were used to explore potential function and clinical significance of these key miRNAs.Key findingsA total of 17 and 300 HCC-related human miRNAs were identified in GEO dataset and TCGA, respectively. Thereinto seven miRNAs including hsa-miR-199a-3p, hsa-miR-199b-3p, hsa-miR-139-5p, hsa-miR-139-3p, hsa-miR-424-3p, hsa-miR-1269b and hsa-miR-1269a were key miRNAs related to HCC. Functional enrichment analysis showed that these key miRNAs were involved in multiple biological processes, such as telomere maintenance via telomerase, protein sumoylation, histone mRNA metabolic process and angiotensin maturation. Cox regression analysis indicated that hsa-miR-139-5p expression was associated with the prognosis of HCC patients. ROC curve analysis suggested th...
Source: Life Sciences - Category: Biology Source Type: research