Prognostic significance and oncogene function of cathepsin A in hepatocellular carcinoma

Abstract Cathepsin A (CTSA) is a lysosomal protease that regulates galactoside metabolism. The previous study has shown CTSA abnormally expressed in various types of cancer. However, rarely the addressed role hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and its prognostic value. To clinical value potential function HCC, datasets from Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database 136 HCC patient cohort were analyzed. expression was found to be significantly higher patients compared with normal liver tissues, which supported by immunohistochemistry (IHC) validation. Both gene ontology (GO) Kyoto Encyclopedia Genes Genomes (KEGG) analyses demonstrated co-expressed genes involved ATP hydrolysis coupled proton transport, carbohydrate metabolic process, lysosome organization, oxidative phosphorylation, other glycan degradation, etc. Survival analysis showed significant reduction both overall survival (OS) recurrence-free (RFS) high TCGA cohort. Furthermore, overexpression diagnostic distinguishing between tissue [Area under curve (AUC) = 0.864]. Moreover, Gene set enrichment (GSEA) correlated proteasome, lysosome, tissues. These findings demonstrate may as biomarker HCC.