A seven-gene set associated with chronic hypoxia of prognostic importance in hepatocellular carcinoma
(2010) Clinical Cancer Research — Vol. 16, n° 16, p. 4278-4288 (2010)
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- Abstract
- PURPOSE: Hepatocellular carcinomas (HCC) have an unpredictable clinical course, and molecular classification could provide better insights into prognosis and patient-directed therapy. We hypothesized that in HCC, certain microenvironmental regions exist with a characteristic gene expression related to chronic hypoxia which would induce aggressive behavior. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN: We determined the gene expression pattern for human HepG2 liver cells under chronic hypoxia by microarray analysis. Differentially expressed genes were selected and their clinical values were assessed. In our hypothesis-driven analysis, we included available independent microarray studies of patients with HCC in one single analysis. Three microarray studies encompassing 272 patients were used as training sets to determine a minimal prognostic gene set, and one recent study of 91 patients was used for validation. RESULTS: Using computational methods, we identified seven genes (out of 3,592 differentially expressed under chronic hypoxia) that showed correlation with poor prognostic indicators in all three training sets (65/139/73 patients) and this was validated in a fourth data set (91 patients). Retrospectively, the seven-gene set was associated with poor survival (hazard ratio, 1.39; P = 0.007) and early recurrence (hazard ratio, 2.92; P = 0.007) in 135 patients. Moreover, using a hypoxia score based on this seven-gene set, we found that patients with a score of >0.35 (n = 42) had a median survival of 307 days, whereas patients with a score of < or =0.35 (n = 93) had a median survival of 1,602 days (P = 0.005). CONCLUSIONS: We identified a unique, liver-specific, seven-gene signature associated with chronic hypoxia that correlates with poor prognosis in HCCs.
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[UGent]
Citations
van Malenstein, H., Gevaert, O., Libbrecht, L., Daemen, A., Allemeersch, J., Nevens, F., Van Cutsem, E., Cassiman, D., De Moor, B., Verslype, C., & van Pelt, J. (2010). A seven-gene set associated with chronic hypoxia of prognostic importance in hepatocellular carcinoma. Clinical Cancer Research, 16(16), 4278-4288. https://doi.org/10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-09-3274 (Original work published 2010)