Methylation site APC112043544 as a potential biomarker for post-transplant hepatocellular carcinoma recurrence

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the prognostic value of DNA methylation of tumor suppressor genes for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) recurrence after liver transplantation. Methods:APC gene was selected according to The Cancer Genome Atlas dataset. Tumor tissues and clinical data of 85 HCC patients who received a liver transplantation were retrospectively enrolled and next-generation methylation sequencing was performed. Risk factors were determined using the Cox proportional-hazard-regression model. Results: The APC methylation site (chromosome 5, position 112043544) was an independent predictor of post-transplant HCC recurrence. Patients with hyper-methylated APC112043544 experienced superior recurrence-free survival (p = 0.021) and had a decreased proportion of microvascular invasion (p = 0.017). APC112043544 also predicted recurrence risk in patients beyond selection criteria. Conclusions:APC112043544 methylation may serve as a potential biomarker for post-transplant HCC recurrence.

Keywords::

• APC gene
• DNA methylation
• hepatocellular carcinoma
• liver transplantation
• tumor recurrence

Supplementary data

To view the supplementary data that accompany this paper please visit the journal website at: www.futuremedicine.com/doi/suppl/10.2217/fon-2021-1608

Author contributions

C Jia and S Zheng designed the project. Z Yang, W Chen and H Zhu conducted most of the experiments and analyses and wrote the first draft of manuscript; L Zhang, K Zhou and H Tang conducted part of the analyses. R Sun, Y Huang and H Xie helped with the revision of manuscript. The manuscript was approved by all authors before submission.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

This work was supported by grants from the Jinan Provincial Laboratory Research Project of Microecological Biomedicine (No. JNL-2022039c), Medicine and Health Science and Technology Plan Projects of Zhejiang Province (No. 2022KY245) and Science and Technology program of Jinhua Science and Technology Bureau (No. 2021-4-178). The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

Ethical conduct of research

All organs for liver transplantation were from the voluntary organ donor system in China and none of the organs were from executed prisoners. The study was performed in accordance with the 1975 Declaration of Helsinki and was approved by the Ethics Committee of the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University. The authors state that they have obtained appropriate institutional review board approval or have followed the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki for all human or animal experimental investigations. In addition, for investigations involving human subjects, informed consent has been obtained from the participants involved.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by grants from the Jinan Provincial Laboratory Research Project of Microecological Biomedicine (No. JNL-2022039c), Medicine and Health Science and Technology Plan Projects of Zhejiang Province (No. 2022KY245) and Science and Technology program of Jinhua Science and Technology Bureau (No. 2021-4-178). The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.