Identification and clinical validation of EMT-associated prognostic features based on hepatocellular carcinoma

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to construct a model based on the prognostic features associated with epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) to explore the various mechanisms and therapeutic strategies available for the treatment of metastasis and invasion by hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cells. METHODS: EMT-associated genes were identified, and their molecular subtypes were determined by consistent clustering analysis. The differentially expressed genes (DEGs) among the molecular subtypes were ascertained using the limma package and they were subjected to functional enrichment analysis. The immune cell scores of the molecular subtypes were evaluated using ESTIMATE, MCPcounter, and GSCA packages of R. A multi-gene prognostic model was constructed using lasso regression, and the immunotherapeutic effects of the model were analyzed using the Imvigor210 cohort. In addition, immunohistochemical analysis was performed on a cohort of HCC tissue to validate gene expression. RESULTS: Based on the 59 EMT-associated genes identified, the 365—liver hepatocellular carcinoma (LIHC) samples were divided into two subtypes, C1 and C2. The C1 subtype mostly showed poor prognosis, had higher immune scores compared to the C2 subtype, and showed greater correlation with pathways of tumor progression. A four-gene signature construct was fabricated based on the 1130 DEGs among the subtypes. The construct was highly robust and showed stable predictive efficacy when validated using datasets from different platforms (HCCDB18 and GSE14520). Additionally, compared to currently existing models, our model demonstrated better performance. The results of the immunotherapy cohort showed that patients in the low-risk group have a better immune response, leading to a better patient’s prognosis. Immunohistochemical analysis revealed that the expression levels of the FTCD, PON1, and TMEM45A were significantly over-expressed in 41 normal samples compared to HCC samples, while that of the G6PD was significantly over-expressed in cancerous tissues. CONCLUSIONS: The four-gene signature construct fabricated based on the EMT-associated genes provides valuable information to further study the pathogenesis and clinical management of HCC. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12935-021-02326-8.