Glycolysis gene expression profilings screen for prognostic risk signature of hepatocellular carcinoma

Metabolic changes are the markers of cancer and have attracted wide attention in recent years. One of the main metabolic features of tumor cells is the high level of glycolysis, even if there is oxygen. The transformation and preference of metabolic pathways is usually regulated by specific gene expression. The aim of this study is to develop a glycolysis-related risk signature as a biomarker via four common cancer types. Only hepatocellular carcinoma was shown the strong relationship with glycolysis. The mRNA sequencing and chip data of hepatocellular carcinoma, breast invasive carcinoma, renal clear cell carcinoma, colorectal adenocarcinoma were included in the study. Gene set enrichment analysis was performed, profiling three glycolysis-related gene sets, it revealed genes associated with the biological process. Univariate and multivariate Cox proportional regression models were used to screen out prognostic-related gene signature. We identified six mRNAs (DPYSL4, HOMER1, ABCB6, CENPA, CDK1, STMN1) significantly associated with overall survival in the Cox proportional regression model for hepatocellular carcinoma. Based on this gene signature, we were able to divide patients into high-risk and low-risk subgroups. Multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that prognostic power of this six gene signature is independent of clinical variables. Further, we validated this data in our own 55 paired hepatocellular carcinoma and adjacent tissues. The results showed that these proteins were highly expressed in hepatocellular carcinoma tissues compared with adjacent tissue. The survival time of high-risk group was significantly shorter than that of low-risk group, indicating that high-risk group had poor prognosis. We calculated the correlation coefficients between six proteins and found that these six proteins were independent of each other. In conclusions, we developed a glycolysis-related gene signature that could predict survival in hepatocellular carcinoma patients. Our findings provide novel insight to the mechanisms of glycolysis and it is useful for identifying patients with hepatocellular carcinoma with poor prognoses.