It is important to identify novel biomarkers to improve hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) diagnosis and treatment. Herein, we reported the role of karyopherin α4 (KPNA4) in HCC patients through public data mining and examined the results using clinical samples in our center. Our results revealed that KPNA4 expression level was positively correlated with the infiltration of CD8+ T cells, B cells, dendritic cells, CD4+ T cells, neutrophils and macrophages. In addition, KPNA4 expression was significantly associated with T cell exhaustion. KPNA4 mRNA and protein expression levels were significantly higher in cancerous tissue than in normal tissue. Besides, the increased expression of KPNA4 indicated poor overall survival. Univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses showed KPNA4 could be viewed as an independent risk factor for HCC patients. Moreover, our experimental results were consistent with those obtained from bioinformatic results. These findings revealed KPNA4 may serve as a novel prognostic biomarker and a potential therapeutic target for HCC.
Keywords: KPNA4; biomarker; hepatocellular carcinoma; immune infiltration; overall survival.