Expression of C-type lectin domain family 1 member B in hepatocellular carcinoma and its clinical significance / 第二军医大学学报

ABSTRACT

Objective To explore the expression of C-type lectin domain 1 member B (CLEC1B) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tissues and its relationship with the clinicopathological characteristics and prognosis of HCC patients. Methods HCC tissue microarray data (GSE49515, GSE115018) were retrieved from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database to analyze the differential expression of genes between cancer tissues and normal control tissues. HCC transcriptome datasets were screened from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database to analyze the differential expression of CLEC1B in HCC tissues. Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) was used to search for the signaling pathways related to CLEC1B in HCC. The cancer tissues and corresponding paracancerous tissues were collected from 37 HCC patients. The expression of CLEC1B mRNA was detected by quantitative real-time PCR, the expression of CLEC1B protein was detected by Western blotting. χ2 test was performed to analyze the relationship between CLEC1B expression and clinicopathological characteristics of HCC patients. Kaplan-Meier method and log-rank test were performed to analyze the relationship between CLEC1B mRNA expression and prognosis of HCC patients. The blood samples were collected from 37 HCC patients and 37 healthy volunteers. The concentration of CLEC1B in plasma was measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The diagnostic value of CLEC1B for HCC was evaluated by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Results The expression of CLEC1B was low in HCC cancer tissues, and the low expression of CLEC1B in HCC tissues was associated with tumor hemorrhage (P0.01). The concentration of CLEC1B in plasma could be used as a biomarker for the diagnosis of HCC. The best diagnostic efficiency of CLEC1B was obtained by using 62.44 ng/mL as cut-off value (the area under the ROC curve was 0.966, the sensitivity was 92.7%, and the specificity was 91.3%). The HCC patients with high CLEC1B expression had a longer overall survival than those with low CLEC1B expression, and the difference was significant (P0.01). In HCC, CLEC1B gene showed a consistent trend of differential expression with ATM and Rad3-related pathway (ATR pathway), cell cycle pathway, DNA repair pathway and myc signaling pathway. Conclusion The low expression of CLEC1B in HCC is related to tumor hemorrhage, and the prognosis of HCC patients with low expression of CLEC1B is poor.