Haptoglobin expression correlates with tumor differentiation and five-year overall survival rate in hepatocellular carcinoma.
Elevated serum haptoglobin (Hp) is identified as a prognostic marker in multiple types of solid tumors, which is correlated with poor prognosis. HCC is one of the major causes of cancer deaths in worldwide, which remains poor prognosis and is clinically urgent for discovering early diagnostic markers. However, except for serum Hp, the correlation of tumor Hp expression with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) progression is still unclear. In this study, we evaluated and identified the tissue Hp expression as a prognostic marker to predict the survival rate of HCC patients. To evaluate the prognostic value of Hp expression for HCC, two cohorts were enrolled in our study, including total 130 matched pair tissue sections (both adjacent non-tumorous and tumor tissue derived from same patient) of HCC patients from Changhua Christian Hospital (CCH) and total 316 RNA-seq data with clinical information of HCC patients from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. In contrast to other types of cancers, HCC tumor tissues have lower Hp protein expression in CCH cohort and have lower Hp mRNA expression in TCGA cohort as compared with adjacent non-tumorous tissues (p < 0.001). Moreover, lower Hp expression is significantly correlated with different stages of HCC cancer differentiation in CCH cohort (one-way ANOVA, p < 0.001). Most importantly, lower Hp expression is highly correlated with poor five-year overall survival rate in TCGA cohort (p < 0.01). Based on our data, we conclude that tissue Hp expression positively correlates with better HCC tumor differentiation and increased five-year overall survival rate of HCC patients. The results indicated that tissue Hp is potentially a prognostic marker for HCC patients. Our findings may further provide a new insight of effective treatments along with biopsy diagnosis of HCC patients.
Department of Biological Science and Technology, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan.|Institute of Molecular Medicine and Bioengineering, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan.|Program of Interdisciplinary Neuroscience, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan.
Chun-San
CS
Tai
Department of Emergency Medicine, Changhua Christian Hospital, Changhua, Taiwan.|School of Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.|School of Medicine, Chung Shan Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan.
Yan-Ren
YR
Lin
Institute of Molecular Medicine and Bioengineering, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan.
Tsung-Han
TH
Teng
Transplant Medicine & Surgery Research Centre, Changhua Christian Hospital, Changhua, Taiwan.|Department of Medical Research, China Medical University Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan.
Ping-Yi
PY
Lin
Institute of Bioinformatics and Systems Biology, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan.
Siang-Jyun
SJ
Tu
Institute of Bioinformatics and Systems Biology, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan.
Chih-Hung
CH
Chou
Institute of Bioinformatics and Systems Biology, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan.
Ya-Rong
YR
Huang
Institute of Bioinformatics and Systems Biology, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan.
Wei-Chih
WC
Huang
Department of Medicine, Mackay Medical College, New Taipei City, Taiwan.|Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Hsinchu MacKay Memorial Hospital, Hsinchu, Taiwan.|Mackay Junior College of Medicine, Nursing and Management, Taipei, Taiwan.
Shun-Long
SL
Weng
Department of Biological Science and Technology, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan.|Institute of Bioinformatics and Systems Biology, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan.
Hsien-Da
HD
Huang
School of Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.|Department of General Surgery, Changhua Christian Hospital, Changhua, Taiwan.
Yao-Li
YL
Chen
Department of Biological Science and Technology, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan.
Wen Liang
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4308-3128
WL
Chen
D000368:Aged; D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; D006528:Carcinoma, Hepatocellular / Q000235:genetics* / Q000401:mortality* / Q000473:pathology; D005260:Female; D015870:Gene Expression; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D006242:Haptoglobins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D059014:High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D008113:Liver Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics* / Q000401:mortality* / Q000473:pathology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D060787:Neoplasm Grading; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D011379:Prognosis
D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; D006242:Haptoglobins