Overexpression of TMEM79 combined with SMG5 is related to prognosis, tumor immune infiltration and drug sensitivity in hepatocellular carcinoma

Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a primary liver malignancy that is now relatively common worldwide. TMEM79 has been reported to play diagnostic and prognostic markers in a variety of cancers and was found to be closely associated with immune infiltration. SMG5 is associated with immune cell infiltration in HCC. Multiple nonsense-mediated mRNA processes require the involvement of SMG5. TMEM79 and SMG5 complexes may be prognostic markers for prostate cancer. However, the relationship between TMEM79 expression in HCC and prognosis, its role and mechanism of action, and its relationship with SMG5 have not been studied. This article focuses on not only the prognostic role of TMEM79 and its biological significance, including immuno-infiltration, tumor mutations and drug sensitivity, but also the interaction with SMG5 in HCC.

Methods: Differential expression analysis and the multiCox proportional hazards regression analyses of TMEM79 and SMG5 were performed by multiple databases. Then, use IHC to verify our results. Subsequently, we used R software to analyze the clinical phenotype of both: analysis of clinicopathological features, enrichment analysis, analysis of immune infiltration, analysis of immune checkpoints, analysis of drug sensitivity, and immunotherapy.

Results: Both the database studies and the results of our research group showed that TMEM79 and SMG5 were differentially expressed in HCC and normal tissues. Validation of immunohistochemistry showed that differential expression of TMEM79 and SMG5, which influenced the prognosis of patients with HCC, could be an independent prognostic factor. Results of the TCGA database study showed that TMEM79 and SMG5 were correlated with immune infiltration, immune checkpoints, drug sensitivity, and immunotherapy. We typed TMEM79-related molecules in HCC according to R software. Two types of TMEM79 correlated with clinical features, survival of patients with HCC, and immune infiltration.

Conclusion: TMEM79 are highly expressed in HCC and play an important role in the prognosis of patients with HCC. TMEM79 and SMG5 are positively correlated and may both associated with immune infiltration, and closely linked to immune checkpoints, drug sensitivity, and immunotherapy in HCC.