Background: liver cancer is a malignant tumor with a high morbidity and mortality that endangers human health. High mobility group A2 (HMGA2) is a chromosome associated protein that participates in embryogenesis, tissue development, tumorigenesis and development.
Objective: to explore the relationship between HMGA2 expression and the clinicopathological parameters and survival of liver cancer patients using The Cancer Genome Atlas Liver Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC) data.
Methods: RNA-sequencing data and the corresponding clinical characteristics of the patients were downloaded from the Atlas database. The Chi-squared test was used to assess the relationship between HMGA2 expression and clinical variables. Cox regression analysis was used to compare survival rates between the high- and low-expressing groups; the p-values and Kaplan-Meier survival curves were compared using the log-rank test.
Results: RNA-seq data from 373 cases of liver cancer cases were analyzed. HMGA2 was overexpressed in liver cancer and significantly associated with gender (p = 0.0357), T classification (p = 0.0063), clinical classification (p = 0.0026) and overall survival (p = 0.0386). According to the multivariate analysis, HMGA2 could independently predict overall survival in liver cancer.
Conclusions: HMGA2 independently predicts poor prognosis in liver cancer and serves as a molecular marker to determine disease prognosis.