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WDR4 is a Potential Indicator of Clinical Diagnostics, Prognosis, and Immunotherapy in Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC)
Liyao Yang1, Juan Wang1, Yao Zhang1
1Oncology Department, Hunan Provincial People's Hospital, The First Affiliated Hospital, Hunan Normal University, 410002 Changsha, Hunan, China.
Background:
In recent years, immunotherapy has gained increasing prominence in the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, effective immune-related biomarkers for HCC remain limited. In this study, both transcriptomic data and clinical information on HCC were obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database.
Methods:
The TIMER and GEPIA databases were used to validate the association between WDR4 expression and immune infiltration. Additionally, clinical and pathological data from patients who underwent single-agent immunotherapy for HCC were collected from Hunan Provincial People's Hospital (The First Affiliated Hospital of Hunan Normal University). The relationship between WDR4 expression levels, clinical pathological data, and patient prognosis was assessed using the Kruskal-Wallis test and Kaplan-Meier survival curve analysis. Spearman's correlation analysis was utilized to confirm the relationship between WDR4, CD68, and PD-L1 in HCC tissue.
Results:
WDR4 was significantly upregulated in HCC tissues compared to para-carcinoma tissues (p < 0.001) and exhibited strong diagnostic potential. WDR4 expression showed significant associations with various immune cells, including macrophages (p < 0.001). Kaplan-Meier survival analysis revealed that patients with high WDR4 expression had shorter postoperative progression-free survival in the context of immunotherapy. Data from 37 patients who underwent postoperative single-agent immunotherapy for HCC demonstrated a significant correlation between WDR4 expression levels and disease-free survival (DFS), with strong statistical significance (log-rank p < 0.001).
Conclusions:
WDR4 shows elevated expression in HCC tissues and is associated with immune infiltration, establishing it as a prognostic biomarker in HCC. Furthermore, the positive correlation observed between WDR4 and CD68, as well as PD-L1 (CD274), underscores its potential as a guiding factor in immunotherapeutic approaches for HCC.
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