Expression of ESPL1 gene in hepatocellular carcinoma tissue and its role in the prognosis assessment

Abstract

Abstract: Objective To investigate the expression of Extra spindle poles-like 1 protein (ESPL1) gene in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tissues and its influence on clinical prognosis of HCC, and preliminarily analyze the variation and molecular biological function of ESPL1. Methods ESPL1 expression data and clinical information of HCC patients were obtained from the TCGA database. The expression levels of ESPL1 in cancer, paracancerous, and normal tissues were compared. The COX regression was used to investigate the risk factors of the prognosis in HCC patients, and the Kaplan-Meier method was used to investigate the relationship between the high and low ESPL1 expression level and the prognosis of HCC patients. According to the median ESPL1 expression level, the data were divided into high-expression group and low-expression group, and the log rank test was used to analyze the survival differences between the 2 groups. cBioPortal online software was used to analyze the mutation of ESPL1. The ESPL1 protein interaction network was plotted through the STRING database, and its molecular biological functions were analyzed by GO|KEGG enrichment. Results The ESPL1 expression level of liver cancer tissues was higher than that of paracancerous and normal tissues (0.894 ± 0.643 vs 0.337 ± 0.34, 1.908 ± 1.079 vs 0.912±0.77, P＜0.05), and the level of ESPL1 in hepatitis B-related liver cancer was higher than that of non-hepatitis B-related liver cancer (2.159 ± 1.17 vs 1.747 ± 0.983, P＜0.05). ESPL1 expression level was related to gender, age, body mass index (BMI), primary tumor stage, and alpha fetal protein (AFP) level (P＜0.05). Primary tumor stage and ESPL1 expression level were independent risk factors for the prognosis of HCC patients. The expression of ESPL1 was negatively correlated to the prognosis (HR=1.72, 95%CI: 1.21-2.41, P＜0.05). The mutation rate of ESPL1 in HCC patients was about 1%, and the prognosis of mutants was poor (P＜0.05). The enrichment results show that ESPL1 was mainly involved in cell cycle, mitosis, chromosome segregation and other biological functions. Conclusion ESPL1 expression level is upregulated in HCC tissues. It is highly expressed and specific in hepatitis B-related liver cancer. Patients with HCC have high ESPL1 expression level and ESPL1 mutations can lead to poor prognosis. ESPL1 can be used as a potential marker for poor prognosis in patients with HCC.

Key words: Extra spindle poles-like 1 protein, Hepatocellular carcinoma, Hepatitis B, Prognosis

HU Bo-bin, WANG Rong-ming, LIANG Heng-kai, WEI Lu, LI Qing-mei, SU Tu-mei, YIN Qian-bing, JIANG Jian-ning. Expression of ESPL1 gene in hepatocellular carcinoma tissue and its role in the prognosis assessment[J]. Chinese Hepatolgy, 2023, 28(3): 285-289.

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