The relationship between members of APOBEC3 in tumor tissues and hepatocellular carcinoma prognosis was not well studied. We compared APOBEC3 expression between tumor and non-tumor tissues based on the expression profile GSE14520 from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO), and correlated APOBEC3 in tumor tissues with outcomes of HCC patients. APOBEC3B, which was significantly up-regulated in HCC tumor tissues (P < 0.001), was negatively associated with HCC overall survival by Cox regression (HR = 1.005, 95% CI = 1.0-1.009, P = 0.033). However, no significant difference was found of APOBEC3B and HCC overall survival by Kaplan-Meier method. HCC patients with high APOBEC3F expression in tumor tissues more likely coexist with multinodular tumors than those with low APOBEC3F level (26.4% and 13.6%, respectively, P = 0.018). Cox univariate and multivariate regression analyses revealed that APOBEC3F overexpression in tumor tissues was negatively associated with HCC recurrence (HR = 1.132, 95% CI = 1.013-1.265, P = 0.028). Additionally, the higher the APOBEC3F expressed, the greater risk of poor recurrence-free survival for HCC patients (mean survival time high = 32.25 and low = 42.68 months, respectively; log rank P = 0.012) when grouped by lower quartile cut-off of 10.98.
Conclusions: Overexpression of APOBEC3F in tumor tissues is potentially predictive for poor recurrence-free survival from HBV-HCC patients. The role of other APOBEC3 members in HCC development needed further research.