Clinicopathological significance of RGS6 expression in hepatocellular carcinoma: RGS6 expression and HCC's clinicopathological signficance

Abstract

BACKGROUND: G protein signaling regulatory protein 6 (RGS6) is expressed in multiple organs such as liver, brain, fat, heart, thyroid, and the association of RGS6 with tumorigenesis has been demonstrated. However, the expression of RGS6 in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and its relevance to its clinicopathological significance is not exactly understood. METHODS: In this study, we investigated the clinicopathological significance of RGS6 protein expression in the tissular samples from patients with HCC (n = 100) by immunohistochemistry technique and explored potential effects of RGS6 expression on tumor microenvironment, genic heterogeneity, and resistance of anticancer drugs by bioinformatics analytic method. RESULTS: Results showed that RGS6 expression was lower in tumor tissue (TT) than in paracancerous tissue (PCT) and this kind of decreasing RGS6 expression was significantly associated with such clinicopathological features of HCC as tumor size, grade and stage, microvessel infiltration, and Ki67. Compared to those with high RGS6 expression, these HCC patients with low RGS6 expression featured a shorter median overall survival time (1590.00 vs.1071.00 days) and an increasing death risk (adjusted hazard ratio = 2.80 and 95% confidential interval = 1.18-6.66). Similar findings were observed in the analyses of RGS6 mRNA expression data from TCGA Database. Additionally, Results from bioinformatics analyses displayed that abnormal RGS6 expression was statistically correlated with tumor microenvironment, genic heterogeneity, and resistance of anticancer drugs.  CONCLUSIONS: These results showed that the dysregulation of RGS6 expression affected the clinicopathological features of HCC (such as tumor proliferation, grade and stage) and suggest that this dysregulation may play an important role in the progression of HCC.