Integrated profiling identifies ITGB3BP as prognostic biomarker for hepatocellular carcinoma

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a highly malignant tumor. In this study, we sought to identify a novel biomarker for HCC by analyzing transcriptome and clinical data. The R software was used to analyze the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in the datasets GSE74656 and GSE84598 downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus database, followed by a functional annotation. A total of 138 shared DEGs were screened from two datasets. They were mainly enriched in the “Metabolic pathways” pathway (Padj=8.21E-08) and involved in the carboxylic acid metabolic process (Padj=0.0004). The top 10 hub genes were found by protein-protein interaction analysis and were up-regulated in HCC tissues compared to normal tissues in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. Survival analysis distinguished 8 hub genes CENPE, SPDL1, HMMR, RACGAP1, TRIP13, CKAP2, CKAP5, and ITGB3BP were considered as prognostic hub genes. Multivariate cox regression analysis indicated that all the prognostic hub genes were independent prognostic factors for HCC. Furthermore, the receiver operating characteristic curve revealed that the 8-hub genes model had better prediction performance for overall survival compared to the T stage (p=0.008) and significantly improved the prediction value of the T stage (p=0.002). The Human Protein Atlas showed that the protein expression of ITGB3BP was up-regulated in HCC, so the expression of ITGB3BP was further verified in our cohort. The results showed that ITGB3BP was up-regulated in HCC tissues and was significantly associated with lymph node metastasis.