Research Paper Volume 12, Issue 2 pp 1171—1185
DNASE1L3 as an indicator of favorable survival in hepatocellular carcinoma patients following resection
- 1 Department of Oncology, The Fifth Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Zhuhai 519000, Guangdong, China
- 2 KU Leuven, Campus Gasthuisberg, Faculty of Medicine, Leuven 3000, Belgium
- 3 Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Biomedical Imaging, The Fifth Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Zhuhai 519000, Guangdong, China
- 4 Department of General Surgery, The Fifth Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Zhuhai 519000, Guangdong, China
- 5 Central Laboratory, The Fifth Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Zhuhai 519000, Guangdong, China
Received: October 1, 2019 Accepted: December 25, 2019 Published: January 24, 2020
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.102675How to Cite
Abstract
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a common malignancy with a dismal prognosis. It is of great importance to identify biomarkers for the prediction of patients’ survival.
The mRNA expression level of deoxyribonuclease 1 like 3 (DNASE1L3) and its correlation with survival were accessed in 424 samples from The Cancer Genome Atlas database. Its expression level was confirmed by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction and western blotting in 20 pairs of postsurgical specimens. In addition, immunohistochemistry staining of DNASE1L3 was also performed in 113 postoperative samples, using a histochemistry score system. The relationship between patients’ survival and DNASE1L3 expression level was evaluated by the Kaplan-Meier method.
DNASE1L3 is downregulated in both mRNA and protein levels in HCC tissues, compared with adjacent normal tissues. 52 of 113 HCC specimens showed positive DNASE1L3 protein expression. Patients with positive DNASE1L3 expression had significantly longer overall survival, compared with patients with negative expression (p = 0.023). However, the DNASE1L3 fails to discriminate progression-free survival (p = 0.134). Multivariate COX analysis revealed that positive DNASE1L3 expression and higher differentiation were significantly associated with better overall survival.
This study demonstrated that positive DNASE1L3 expression is an independent prognostic factor for better survival in HCC patients following radical resection.
Abbreviations
AFP: alpha-fetoprotein; DNA: deoxyribonucleic acid; DNASE1L3: deoxyribonuclease 1 like 3; FPKM: fragments per kilobase of transcript per million mapped reads; HBsAg: hepatitis B virus surface antigen; HBV: hepatitis B virus; HCC: hepatocellular carcinoma; HCV: hepatitis C virus; HR: hazard ratio; IHC: immunohistochemistry; LIHC: liver hepatocellular carcinoma; OS: overall survival; PFS: progression-free survival; RT-qPCR: real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction; SLE: systemic lupus erythematosus; TCGA: the Cancer Genome Atlas Program.