<p>Prognostic Significance of Pregnancy Zone Protein and Its Correlation with Immune Infiltrates in Hepatocellular Carcinoma</p>

Abstract

Human pregnancy zone protein (PZP) is a pregnancy-related protein which is increased dramatically during pregnancy. However, the expression of PZP and its prognostic value, association with tumor-infiltrating immune cells (TIICs) in microenvironment and potential biological process in HCC were unclear. Methods: The PZP expression, clinicopathology analysis and its influence on survival were analyzed by GEPIA and HPA. Fifty-nine HCC samples and 30 corresponding noncancerous tissues were collected and retrospectively analyzed to verify the results of bioinformatics analysis. Further, TIMER and CIBERSORT were performed to identify the significantly alerted biological process and affections of PZP expression on the immune system in patients with HCC. Finally, IHC assay of CD4+ T cells and Treg cells was performed to confirm the results of immune infiltrates analysis by TIMER and CIBERSORT. Results: PZP expression was downregulated in HCC tissues and its low level was substantially correlated with poor prognosis in patients with HCC. TIMER analysis showed that PZP expression had a positive correlation with the levels of macrophage and neutrophil. Furthermore, CIBERSORT analysis showed that resting memory CD4 T cells were increased in high PZP expression group, while the results of Tregs were the opposite. Finally, the IHC results of CD4+ T cells and Treg cells showed that only Tregs were negatively associated with PZP expression. Conclusion: PZP was identified as a novel prognosis biomarker of HCC and might play a vital role in the regulation and recruitment of TIICs in HCC immune microenvironment.

Discovery and validation of PZP as a novel serum biomarker for screening lung adenocarcinoma in type 2 diabetes mellitus patients

“…Previous research has also uncovered the role of PZP in cancers. In hepatocellular carcinoma, PZP has low expression in tumor tissues, and the downregulation of PZP is correlated with poor clinical outcomes [ 35 ]. Our research identified and validated PZP as a novel serum biomarker for screening LAC in patients with T2DM by SWATH-MS, PRM-MS and ELISA analyses.…”

A Novel Five-Gene Signature for Prognosis Prediction in Hepatocellular Carcinoma

“…Besides, LCAT was hypermethylated and decreased in HCC tissues (40), could act as a good biomarker at predicting HCC diagnosis, prognosis and recurrence (41), and it was confirmed in the later study by Long (42). As for PZP, in previous study we have confirmed that its depletion was significantly related to poor survival outcomes in HCC (16). All these indicated that AURKA, PZP, RACGAP1, ACOT12 and LCAT played important roles in the development of HCC and might be targets for immunotherapeutic intervention strategies in further.…”

“…Previous collected 59 fresh frozen tissues from HCC patients were selected as an independent validation cohort (16). qRT-PCR was used to detect the mRNA levels of the five gene (17), after the relative mRNAs expression levels were normalized to b-ACTIN and log 2 transformed.…”

Serum exosomal pregnancy zone protein as a promising biomarker in inflammatory bowel disease

“…In addition, increased PZP concentration in the sputum is associated with respiratory tract infection caused by Pseudomonas aeruginosa [ 23 ]. In hepatocellular carcinoma, the expression of PZP was low in tumor tissue, and the down-regulation of PZP is associated with a poor clinical prognosis [ 36 ]. Recent studies found that PZP mRNA was downregulated in lung cancer tissues and was significantly correlated with immune cell infiltration.…”