Identification of factors regulating the gene expression of alcohol dehydrogenases in hepatocellular carcinoma

Abstract Background Excessive alcohol consumption has been documented to increase the risk of liver hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) development. Accordingly, a broad interest pointed to alcohol dehydrogenases (ADHs), which display essential roles in alcohol metabolism. Despite the relevance of ADHs expression and the prognosis of HCC has been estimated, so far, limited research concerning the factors that are responsible for the regulation of ADHs expression has been reported. Methods In this study, using The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and RegNetwork database, we predicted potential factors consisting of DNA methylation, gene copy number variations, transcription factors (TFs) and microRNAs (miRNAs) that might impact ADHs gene expression in HCC. Results We found that DNA methylation induced the down-regulated expression of ADH1B. Of note, our results implicated that gene copy number variation might not have effects on ADHs expression. Regarding TFs, we speculated that NFYA modulated ADH1C, E2F1 and TFAP2A regulated ADH6 expression based on their expression and prognostic value. Moreover, miR-185 and miR-561 might elicit the repression of ADH4, and miR-105 might impair ADH6 expression. Conclusion This study revealed that multiple factors, including DNA methylation, TFs and microRNAs, affect the expression of ADH family members, which provided new insights into discovering promising HCC-suppressive targets.