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| Increased CMTM4 mRNA expression predicts a poor prognosis in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma |
| He-Qi Zhou a , b , Jian-Hao Li a , b , Li-Wen Liu a , b , Jia-Min Lou a , b , Zhi-Gang Ren a , b , ∗ |
a Department of Infectious Diseases, the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450052, China
b Key Laboratory of Clinical Medicine, the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450052, China
∗ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: fccrenzg@zzu.edu.cn (Z.-G. Ren). |
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Abstract Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common human malignancies and main cause of cancer mortality worldwide [1] . Conventional treatment for HCC consists of hepatic resection, liver transplantation and radiofrequency ablation [ 2 , 3 ]. Despite improvements in clinical treatment, the 5-year survival rate of advanced HCC patients remains low. The exploration of novel therapeutic targets and the identification of prognostic biomarkers for HCC are vital and essential to improve clinical outcomes. CKLF-like MARVEL transmembrane domaincontaining member 4 ( CMTM4 ), mapped to chromosome 16q22.1, is the most conserved member of the CMTM family. The CMTM family comprises 9 genes: CMTM 1-8 and CKLF . Proteins from CMTM family are involved in the immune system [4] , the male reproductive system [5] , angiogenesis regulation, and tumorigenesis. CMTM4/6 protect programmed death-1 (PD-1) ligand 1 (PD-L1) protein from ubiquitination and suppress tumor specific T cell response via PD-L1 regulation, presenting critical immune checkpoints and potential therapeutic targets for anti-tumor immunity [4] . At the protein level, high CMTM6 expression was associated with worse patient survival in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) [6] , while the reduced CMTM6 protein predicted poor prognosis for HCC patients [7] . At the transcriptome level, a negative correlation was found between CMTM6 expression and survival time of patients with glioma [8] . The mRNA levels of CMTM family members appears diverse in different tumors [9] . Recently, Bei et al. [10] investigated the clinical significance of the CMTM4 protein in HCC based on 75 pairs of specimens collected from HCC patients. However, the expression and clinical value of CMTM4 mRNA are not well investigated. In this study, we investigate CMTM4 mRNA expression and its role in HCC diagnosis and prognosis using data from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. Moreover, we explored the molecular mechanism of CMTM4 in HCC, which may help explain the unfavorable survival of HCC.
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2020, Vol. 19 
