Ubiquitin-Like Modifier Activating Enzyme 1 as a Novel Diagnostic and Prognostic Indicator That Correlates With Ferroptosis and the Malignant Phenotypes of Liver Cancer Cells

PurposeFerroptosis is a type of cell death that is iron dependent, a characteristic that distinguishes it from necrosis, apoptosis, and autophagy. However, the ferroptotic mechanisms for hepatitis B virus-associated hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remain incompletely described.MethodsTwo hepatitis B virus-associated HCC public datasets, GSE22058 (n=192) and GSE54238 (n=23), were obtained from the NCBI Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. Bioinformatics methods, including weighted gene coexpression network analysis (WGCNA), Cox regression, and LASSO analysis, were used to identify signature markers for diagnosis and prognosis. CCK8, wound healing, Transwell migration/invasion, and ferroptosis assays were employed to explore the biological function of novel candidate markers weight gene coexpression network analysis.ResultsIn total, 926 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were common between the GSE22058 and GSE54238 datasets. Following WGCNA, 515 DEGs derived from the MEturquoise gene module were employed to establish diagnosis and prognosis models in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) HCC RNA-Seq cohort (n=423). The score of the diagnostic model was strikingly upregulated in the TCGA HCC group (p