Down-regulation of TRPV6 Is Associated With Adverse Prognosis in Hepatocellular Carcinoma Treated With Curative Resection

Abstract

Background/aim: Transient receptor potential vanilloid 6 (TRPV6), an endothelial Ca²⁺-selective entry channel, is expressed in various cancer types, and a selective TRPV6 inhibitor is currently being investigated in a clinical trial. However, TRPV6 expression in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has not been reported.

Materials and methods: We evaluated TRPV6 expression in 219 cases of HCC and analyzed its association with clinicopathological parameters and prognostic significance. TRPV6 mRNA expression was compared between HCC and non-tumor liver tissues using various public datasets, and its prognostic effect was examined in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) cohort.

Results: Low TRPV6 expression was found in 37.4% of patients, which was significantly associated with adverse histologic features, and patients with low TRPV6 expression had shorter recurrence-free and disease-free survival. TRPV6 mRNA expression was consistently lower in HCC compared to non-tumor liver samples in public datasets, at the whole tissue level as well as single-cell level. Patients with low TRPV6 expression in the TCGA cohort had shorter progression-free survival.

Conclusion: TRPV6 expression is down-regulated in HCCs and associated with a poor prognosis. TRPV6 may be a prognostic biomarker in HCC.

Keywords: Hepatocellular carcinoma; TRPV6; biomarkers; prognosis; recurrence.