Combined DNA Methylation and Transcriptomic Assessments to Determine a Prognostic Model for PD-1-Negative Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology

Lixu Zhu¹  Wenzhi Guo⁵ 

[1] Pancreatic Surgery and Digestive Organ Transplantation at Henan Universities, Zhengzhou, China;Department of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China;Henan Key Laboratory of Digestive Organ Transplantation, Zhengzhou, China;Key Laboratory of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery and Digestive Organ Transplantation of Henan Province, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China;;Open and Key Laboratory of Hepatobiliary &

关键词: hepatocellular carcinoma;    PD-1;    methylation;    ESTIMATE;    prognosis;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fcell.2021.708819

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has the highest incidence and mortality of any malignancy in the world. Immunotherapy has been a major breakthrough for HCC treatment, but immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) are effective in only a small percentage of HCC patients. In the present study, we screened programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) -negative HCC samples, which are frequently resistant to ICIs, and identified their methylation and transcription characteristics through the assessment of differential gene methylation and gene expression. We also screened for potential targeted therapeutic drugs using the DrugBank database. Finally, we used a LASSO (least absolute shrinkage and selection operator) regression analysis to construct a prognostic model based on three differentially methylated and expressed genes (DMEGs). The results showed that ESTIMATE (Estimation of Stromal and Immune Cells in Malignant Tumors using Expression Data) scores for the tumor samples were significantly lower compared to normal sample ESTIMATE scores. In addition, we identified 31 DMEGs that were able to distinguish PD-1-negative samples from normal samples. A functional enrichment analysis showed that these genes were involved in a variety of tumor-related pathways and immune-related pathways, and the DrugBank screening identified potential therapeutic drugs. Finally, the prognostic model based on three DMEGs (UBD, CD5L, and CD213A2) demonstrated good predictive power for HCC prognosis and was verified using an independent cohort. The present study demonstrated the methylation characteristics of PD-1-negative HCC samples, identified several potential therapeutic drugs, and proposed a prognostic model based on UBD, CD5L, and CD213A2 methylation expression. In conclusion, this work provides an in-depth understanding of methylation in HCC samples that are not sensitive to ICIs.

【 授权许可】

Unknown