Identification of Iron Metabolism-Related Genes Signature and Novel Role of FLVCR1 in Hepatocellular Carcinoma
Abstract Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the main and highly malignant histological subtype of liver cancer. We tried to construct a novel signature with iron metabolism-related genes to provide new therapeutic targets and improve the prognosis for HCC patients.Methods: The gene expression data of 70 iron metabolism-related genes and its relevant clinical information were obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) databases. Consensus clustering analysis was performed to determine clusters of HCC patients with different OS. Cox regression and LASSO regression analyses were used to establish a prognostic signature. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) and Kaplan–Meier analyses were carried out to examine the predicated performance of the signature.Results: Consensus clustering analysis determined two clusters of HCC patients with different OS(p<0.01), TNM stage(p<0.05) and pathological grade(p<0.05). A nine-gene prognostic signature established with iron metabolism-related genes can independently predicate the prognostic of HCC patients. The ROC curves showed a great performance of the signature. In addition, FLVCR1, a hub gene with the highest mutation frequency in our signature, showed the significantly prognostic value in HCC patients. High FLVCR1 expression was significantly associated with poor prognosis and aggressive progression in HCC patients. The promoter methylation level of FLVCR1 was lower in HCC samples with aggressive progression status. The FLVCR1 expression was positively correlated with the infiltration level of B cell, CD4+ T cell, macrophage, neutrophil and dendritic cell. Conclusion: Our study first established a signature related to iron metabolism and identified FLVCR1 as a potential therapeutic target. These findings provided more treatment strategies for HCC patients.