Chinese Hepatolgy ›› 2025, Vol. 30 ›› Issue (4): 435-440.

• Liver Tumor • Previous Articles     Next Articles

An analysis on the correlation between RNA binding protein SMG5 with clinicopathologies and immune infiltration in liver cancer

ZHANG Fen-na1, ZHANG Xin-yi1,2, SUN Rong-rong1,2, HAO Shuai1, WANG Hui1,2, HE Na1, ZHONG Yue3   

  1. 1. The First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Medical University, Shaanxi 710077,China;
    2. Xi'an Medical University, Shaanxi 710021,China;
    3. Shaanxi Second Provincial People's Hospital, Xi'an 710005, China
  • Received:2024-01-30 Online:2025-04-30 Published:2025-06-17
  • Contact: ZHONG Yue, Email: zhongyue197906@163.com

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Abstract: Objective To explore the expression and biofunction of RNA binding protein SMG5 in liver cancer (LC) and its significance in the diagnosis and prognostic prediction. Methods Liver cancer associated sequence data and clinic information were downloaded from TCGA database and analyzed by R to explore the expression, diagnosis value and clinical association of SMG5. Chip data of TNM plot was used for verification. Kaplan-Meier plot and TIMER 2.0 was used to assess the correlation between SMG5 and prognosis and tumor immune infiltration in liver cancer. UACLAN and cBioPortal were used for SMG5 methylation and mutation analyses. STRING was utilized for SMG5 associated protein interaction analyses, followed by GO and KEGG enrichment analysis. Results SMG5 was significantly upregulated in liver cancer (P=1.13×10-26), and positively correlated with tumor grade, AFP, and ishak fibrosis score (P=0.0014, 7.26×10-7 and 0.01), but negatively correlated with 5 year-overall survival rate and disease specific survival rate (P=6.4×10-6 and 0.00028, respectively) of the patients. SMG5 presented a relative higher diagnostic value in liver cancer (AUC=0.965). SMG5 was positively correlated with the infiltration of B cell, CD4+T, macrophage, myeloid-derived suppressor cells (P=2.27×10-6, 2.05×10-6, 1.43×10-6 and 2.64×10-21), but negatively correlated with tumor associated fibroblasts, hematopoietic stem cells, endothelial cells (P=4.95×10-3, 8.08×10-15 and 1.00×10-17). The methylation of SMG5 promoter in liver cancer was significantly lower than that in the control group (P=6.91×10-7), downregulation of the methylation level of cg10199857 site was significantly correlated with a poor prognosis of the patients (P=0.0035), and S725C mutation was correlated with aberrant SMG5 transcription. SMG5 could interacted with several protein to regulate RNA metabolic associated process. Conclusion SMG5 was significantly upregulated in liver cancer and associated with the poor prognosis of patients. In addition, SMG5 presented high diagnostic value and could be used as an underlying biomarker for liver cancer.

Key words: Liver cancer, Tumor prognosis, SMG5, Biomarker, Immune infiltration