Prognostic Significance of NBEAL2 in Liver hepatocellular carcinoma

Abstract

Background: NBEAL2 is a member of the BEACH domain–containing protein (BDCP) family and little is known about the relationship between NBEAL2 and malignancy.Methods: We downloaded the Gene expression profiles and clinical data of Liver hepatocellular carcinoma(LIHC) form the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) dataset. The expression difference of NBEAL2 in LIHC tissues and adjacent nontumor tissues was analyzed by R software. The relationship between NBEAL2 expression and clinicopathological parameters was evaluate by Chi-square test. The effect of NBEAL2 expression on survival were assessed by Kaplan–Meier survival analysis and Cox proportional hazards regression model. GSEA was used to explore the potential molecular mechanism of NBEAL2 in LIHC.Results: Up-regulation of NBEAL2 expression was detected in the LIHC tissue compared with adjacent nontumor tissues(P < 0.001). The chi-square test showed that no significant correlation between the expression level of NBEAL2 and various clinicopathological parameters (including T, N and M classifications) were detected. The Kaplan–Meier curves suggested that lower NBEAL2 expression was related with poor prognosis. The results of Multivariate analysis revealed that a lower expression of NBEAL2 in LIHC was an independent risk of poor overall survival (HR, 8.873; 95% CI, 1.159-67.936; P = 0.035). GSEA suggested that multiple tumor-related metabolic pathways were evidently enriched in samples with the low-NBEAL2 expression phenotype. Conlusion: NBEAL2 might act as an tumor suppressor gene in the progression of LIHC but the precise role of NBELA2 in LIHC needs further vertification.