Identification of metabolism-associated pathways and genes involved in male and female liver cancer patients

•Female had severe metabolic gene and pathway dysregulation than male in HCC patients.•Deregulated metabolic genes mainly involved in amino acid and carbohydrate metabolism.•Upregulated ALDH1A2 independently increased overall survival risk in HCC patients.•Over-expressed GATA3 and TAL1 may activate...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of theoretical biology 2019-11, Vol.480, p.218-228
Main Authors: Zou, Ren-Chao, Xiao, Shu-Feng, Shi, Zhi-Tian, Ke, Yang, Tang, Hao-Ran, Wu, Tian-Gen, Guo, Zhi-Tang, Ni, Fan, Li, Wen-Xing, Wang, Lin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
ALDH1A2
Hepatocellular carcinoma
Metabolism
Overall survival
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Summary:•Female had severe metabolic gene and pathway dysregulation than male in HCC patients.•Deregulated metabolic genes mainly involved in amino acid and carbohydrate metabolism.•Upregulated ALDH1A2 independently increased overall survival risk in HCC patients.•Over-expressed GATA3 and TAL1 may activate ALDH1A2, then affect metabolic pathways. Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a major type of primary liver cancer. HCC is influenced by sex and multiple metabolic abnormalities. The present study aimed to compare the overall metabolic changes between male and female HCC patients and identify key metabolic genes. Metabolic genes and pathways were identified based on analyses of publicly available data. Differential expression analysis, gene set enrichment analysis, survival analysis and transcriptional regulation analysis were employed to explore sex differences and identify key metabolic genes in HCC. The results suggested that female patients had more severe metabolic gene expression abnormalities and pathway deregulation than male patients. This study identified 9 key metabolic genes, and only upregulated ALDH1A2 independently increased overall survival risk in patients. Bioinformatic analyses suggest that upregulated GATA3 and TAL1 activate ALDH1A2 and then disrupt amino acid and carbohydrate metabolism, which may increase the risk of HCC. This study identified a novel contribution of upregulated ALDH1A2 to HCC. Future studies are needed to elucidate the potential metabolic mechanism of the role of ALDH1A2 in HCC.
ISSN:0022-5193
1095-8541
DOI:10.1016/j.jtbi.2019.08.011