Basic Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Hepatol. May 27, 2022; 14(5): 956-971
Published online May 27, 2022. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v14.i5.956
Functions of three ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme 2 genes in hepatocellular carcinoma diagnosis and prognosis
Chun-Ye Zhang, Ming Yang
Chun-Ye Zhang, Department of Veterinary Pathobiology, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, United States
Ming Yang, Department of Surgery, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, United States
Author contributions: Zhang CY and Yang M conceived the idea for this study and collected and analyzed the data, wrote, finalized the manuscript letter, and contributed equally; All authors approved the submitted version and published version.
Institutional review board statement: This study was performed without animal and human studies.
Institutional animal care and use committee statement: This study was performed without animal and human studies.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Both authors declared that there was no conflict of interest with the content of this study.
Data sharing statement: All the data analyzed in this study originated from publicly available The Cancer Genome Atlas database (TCGA Research Network: https://www.cancer.gov/tcga).
ARRIVE guidelines statement: The authors have read the ARRIVE guidelines, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the ARRIVE guidelines.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Ming Yang, DVM, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Surgery, University of Missouri, 1030 Hitt Street, NexGen Precision Building, Room 2203, Columbia, MO 65211, United States. yangmin@health.missouri.edu
Received: December 31, 2021
Peer-review started: December 31, 2021
First decision: February 21, 2022
Revised: March 1, 2022
Accepted: May 7, 2022
Article in press: May 7, 2022
Published online: May 27, 2022
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background

The expression of three ubiquitin-conjugating enzymes 2 (UBE2) including UBE2C, UBE2T, and UBE2S was significantly increased in HCC samples compared to non-tumor tissues.

Research motivation

To explore potential diagnostic and prognostic markers for HCC.

Research objectives

To identify the potential of UBE2C, UBE2T, and UBE2S as potential biomarkers as HCC.

Research methods

Online database was analyzed with different bioinformatic tools.

Research results

Our data showed that UBE2C, UBE2T, and UBE2S genes were overexpressed in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) samples compared to non-tumor tissues. Dependent on the cancer progression stage, three UBE2 genes showed higher expression in tumor tissues at all four stages compared to non-tumor control samples. Furthermore, a significantly higher expression of these genes was found in stage 2 and stage 3 cancers compared to stage 1 cancer. Additionally, overexpression of those genes was negatively associated with prognostic outcome and overall survival time. Patients with TP53 mutation showed a higher expression level of three UBE2 genes, indicating an association between UBE2 expression with p53 function.

Research conclusions

This bioinformatics study sheds light on the important roles of UBE2C, UBE2T, UBE2S for HCC diagnostic and prognostic as potential biomarkers. In addition, it is appealing to further explore the correlation of those genes with TP53 mutation in HCC and the related mechanisms.

Research perspectives

Further studies from following aspects, such as (1) Identification of causing factors of UBE2 overexpression; (2) investigation of the underlying mechanism on overexpression of UBE2 genes causing disease severity and poor survival outcome of patients; (3) exploration of the associated therapeutic targets of UBE2; (4) the roles of co-expressed genes from the analysis of protein-protein network in HCC; and (5) the relationship of p53 mutation with UBE2 expression; will be studied in the future research to better understand the role of three UBE2 genes in liver cancer.