Observational Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Jun 6, 2021; 9(16): 3880-3894
Published online Jun 6, 2021. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v9.i16.3880
Differential analysis revealing APOC1 to be a diagnostic and prognostic marker for liver metastases of colorectal cancer
Hai-Yu Shen, Fang-Ze Wei, Qian Liu
Hai-Yu Shen, Fang-Ze Wei, Qian Liu, Department of Colorectal Surgery, National Cancer Center/National Clinical Research Center for Cancer/Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100021, China
Author contributions: Shen HY, Wei FZ, and Liu Q designed the research, collected and analyzed the data, and drafted and revised the article; all authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Supported by National Key Research and Development (R&D) Program Project, No. 2019YFC1315705.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College Institutional Review Board (approval No. 17-116/1439).
Informed consent statement: All study participants, or their legal guardian, provided informed written consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest in regard to this research.
Data sharing statement: Technical appendix, statistical code, and dataset available from the corresponding author at fcwpumch@163.com.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement-checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement-checklist of items.
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: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Qian Liu, MD, Chief Doctor, Department of Colorectal Surgery, National Cancer Center/National Clinical Research Center for Cancer/Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, No. 17 Panjiayuan Nanli, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100021, China. fcwpumch@163.com
Received: January 22, 2021
Peer-review started: January 22, 2021
First decision: February 28, 2021
Revised: March 10, 2021
Accepted: March 23, 2021
Article in press: March 23, 2021
Published online: June 6, 2021
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most malignant gastrointestinal cancers worldwide. The liver is the most important metastatic target organ, and liver metastasis is the leading cause of death in CRC patients.

Research motivation

There is still a lack of diagnostic or prognostic markers for liver metastasis (LM) of CRC. Therefore, it is very important to identify the diagnostic or prognostic markers for LM of CRC to improve the clinical outcomes.

Research objectives

This study aimed to explore the highly differentially expressed genes (HDEGs) and prognostic marker for LM of CRC.

Research methods

Three NCBI Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) datasets were utilized to identify a set of HDEGs. These significantly HDEGs of the three GEO datasets take the intersection genes and these intersection genes were screened through an online tool to explore their prognostic value. TIMER and R package were utilized to investigate potential immune functions of HDEGs and gene set enrichment analysis was performed to explore their possible impact on CRC.

Research results

APOC1 is one of 47 HDEGs in three GEO datasets for LM of CRC and showed significantly different expression between different N and T stages in the TCGA database. APOC1 mRNA was strongly upregulated in cancer tissues compared with normal tissues, as confirmed by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. The prognostic value of APOC1 for overall survival and disease-free survival in CRC was revealed with PrognoScan and GEPIA2. APOC1 also has a close relationship with immune infiltration showed with TIMER.

Research conclusions

APOC1 is a potential biomarker that is associated with both the diagnosis and prognosis of liver metastases of colorectal cancer.

Research perspectives

Future work and basic research should be performed to confirm these findings of APOC1 and to verify the related potential regulatory mechanisms in vitro and in vivo.