AUTHOR=Ke Shanjia , Lu Shounan , Wang Chaoqun , Xu Yanan , Bai Miaoyu , Yu Hongjun , Feng Zhigang , Yin Bing , Li Zihao , Huang Jingjing , Li Xinglong , Qian Baolin , Hua Yongliang , Pan Shangha , Wu Yaohua , Ma Yong 

TITLE=Comprehensive analysis of the prognostic value and functions of prefoldins in hepatocellular carcinoma

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences

VOLUME=Volume 9 - 2022

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/molecular-biosciences/articles/10.3389/fmolb.2022.957001

DOI=10.3389/fmolb.2022.957001

ISSN=2296-889X

ABSTRACT=Prefoldins (PFDNs), a group of proteins known to be associated with cytoskeletal rearrangement, is involved in the tumor progression in various cancer types. However, little is known about the roles of PFDNs in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Herein, we investigated the transcriptional and survival data of PFDNs from the cancer genome atlas (TCGA) database. Gene ontology (GO), gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) and single-sample gene set enrichment analysis (ssGSEA) were used to evaluated the potential functions of PFDN1/2/3/4. We also detect the expression of PFDN1/2/3/4 via immunohistochemistry (IHC), western blotting and real-time PCR in our clinical samples. We found that the members of PFDN family were elevated expression in HCC tissues, while only PFDN1/2/3/4 were found to be significantly correlated with poor prognosis of patients with HCC in TCGA database. The further investigation was associated with PFDN1-4. We found that the expression of PFDN1/2/3/4 was significantly associated with advanced clinicopathologic features. Apart from TCGA database, IHC, Real-time PCR and immunoblotting identified the overexpression of PFDN1/2/3/4 in HCC tissues and HCC cell lines. Taken together, these results indicated that PFDN1/2/3/4 might be novel prognostic biomarkers and treatment targets for patients with HCC.