Expression of kinesin family member C1 in hepatocellular carcinoma and its correlation with prognosis and clinicopathological features

Objective To study the expression of kinesin family member C1 (KIFC1) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and analyze its correlation with the clinicopathological features and prognosis of patients. Methods The expression levels of KIFC1 protein in the HCC tissues from 82 patients were determined by immunohistochemical staining. The correlation between KIFC1 protein and clinicopathological characteristics (including age, gender, tumor nodules, tumor grade, tumor volume, lymph node metastasis, and alpha-fetoprotein expression) was analyzed. The Kaplan-Meier analysis was used to analyze the effect of KIFC1 expression level on overall survival and progression-free survival in patients with HCC. The expression level of KIFC1 mRNA in liver cancer tissue was analyzed by GPEIA database. The correlation between KIFC1 expression and prognosis was analyzed by KM-plotter. Results KIFC1 protein is significantly overexpressed in liver cancer tissues, and its expression level is significantly correlated with tumor nodule number (P=0.023) and tumor size (P=0.011). Patients with high expression of KIFC1 had poor overall disease and disease-free survival (all P<0.05). KIFC1 mRNA is significantly overexpressed in liver cancer tissues and correlated with disease-free survival and overall survival. Conclusions The expression of KIFC1 protein is highly expressed in liver cancer tissues, and its expression level is related to the clinicopathological characteristics of liver cancer. Bioinformatics analysis results show that KIFC1 is related to the poor prognosis of patients, suggesting that KIFC1 is expected to be a potential predictor and therapeutic target for liver cancer prognosis. Key words: Hepatocellular carcinoma; Kinesin family member C1; Immunohistochemistry; Clinicopathological features; Prognosis