Identification of a hub gene in hepatocellular carcinoma induced by nonalcoholic fatty liver disease using bioinformatics analysis

Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the fourth most common cause of cancer mortality worldwide and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)-related HCC is related to poorer survival than viral hepatitis-related HCC. However, the pathogenetic process of NAFLD to HCC is still poorly understood. Material: and methods: A series of bioinformatics analyses were performed in two public datasets (GSE164760, GSE37031), The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database, and the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) database to explore potential hub genes in NAFLD-related HCC. Results: : Weighted Gene Co-Expression Network Analysis (WGCNA) and LASSO logistic regression were performed to filter out 8 hub genes, then TMEM126A was selected for further analysis for its better diagnostic, stratification, and prognostic value in HCC. The results of Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) indicated that TMEM126A was highly enriched in lipid metabolism. Next, TMEM126A was significantly correlated with the fatty acid biosynthesis and oxidation pathways. Further validation in other datasets confirmed our results. Conclusion: TMEM126A is firstly screened out for a hub gene in the pathogenesis of NAFLD-related HCC. Although further experiments are supposed to verify these results, we provide useful and novel information to explore the underlying mechanism in NAFLD-related HCC.