• Association of increased UBE2C expression with disease stage in the development of malignancy and targeted treatment of patients with Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC)
  • ENSIEH SAGHEB SADEGHI,1,* Haniyeh Tahamtan Nezhad,2 Elnaz Montazami Vazifeh Doost,3
    1. Department of Biology, Neyshabur Branch, Islamic Azad University, Neyshabur, Iran
    2. Department of biology, Faculty of sciences, Islamic Azad University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran
    3. Department of biology, Faculty of sciences, Islamic Azad University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran


  • Introduction: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the fifth most common cancer in men, the seventh most common cancer in women and the third leading cause of cancer death. Typically, HCC is often diagnosed in advanced stages, and many patients with advanced stages do not qualify for treatment.
  • Methods: TCGA data were used to identify the expression of altered genes in (HCC) and the relationship between gene expression and patients' stage size. For this purpose, OncoDB database was used and gene expression was normalized by TMP method. To compare the groups, cancer samples were initially evaluated compared to normal. Also, Stage of the disease is divided into 4 categories: Stage I, Stage II, Stage III, Stage IV. Stage I means the disease is only in one area. It is also called early stage cancer. Stages II and III mean that the cancer is larger and has grown into nearby tissues or lymph nodes. Stage IV means that the cancer has spread to other parts of your body.
  • Results: The results showed that the difference in expression between cancer samples compared to normal showed that 204 genes increased significantly (P <0.001) and with the criterion of | LogFC |> 2 (more than 4 times). On the other hand, the results of examining the relationship between gene expression and patients 'stage showed that the expression of 634 genes was related to patients' stage (P <0.0001). Common genes were identified between the previous stages and the results showed that there were 11 genes that had both increased expression and were associated with patients' stage. UBE2C expression was significantly higher in samples with higher stage compared to stage I and stage II.
  • Conclusion: Our results showed that the expression of UBE2C in cancer samples with more stage is much higher than the control and tumor samples with lower stage. These results suggest that UBE2C may be a good candidate for targeted treatment for patients with liver cancer. There may also be an increased risk of (HCC) associated with higher stages by increased expression of the UBE2C gene.
  • Keywords: Hepatocellular carcinoma , UBE2C, Cancer stages, Gene expression changes