LncRNA-mediated High Expression of TRIP13 Correlates with Poor Prognosis and Tumor Immune Infiltration of Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) accounts for approximately 90% of primary liver cancers and is charactered by poor prognosis. The identification of potential prognostic biomarkers is essential for HCC patients. Methods: In this study, Gene Expression Profiling Interative Analysis (GEPIA) online tool was used to the different expression of TRIP13 and has-miR-29c-3p axis between tumor samples and normal samples in multiple cancers including hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The oncological value of TRIP13 and has-miR-29c-3p axis in cancer was revealed by Kaplan-Meier analysis. The upstream miRNAs of TRIP13 were predicted by the starBase database and Cytoscape software. Results: In this work, we identified that compared to normal tissues, the expression of TRIP13 was high in tumor samples by The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Genotypic-Tissue Expression (GTEx) data. We further revealed that TRIP13 may be a potential oncogene in HCC. Subsequently, hsa-miR-29c-3p was responsible for TRIP13 overexpression, which was identified by expression analysis, correlation analysis and survival analysis of the target gene. Further, hsa-miR-29c-3p was associated with the poor prognosis of cancer patients. Moreover, the expression level of TRIP13 was positively correlated with tumor immune cell infiltration with high infiltrating level of B cells, CD4 ⁺ T cells, macrophages, exhausted CD8 ⁺ T cells and immune checkpoints including PD1, PD-L1 and CTLA-4. Conclusions: In general, our findings reveal that TRIP13 and hsa-miR-29c-3p promotes the malignant development of hepatocellular carcinoma, which is a potential new therapeutic target and a prognostic biomarker for HCC.