Introduction: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a common clinical malignancy. Recent studies reported that E2F transcription factor 2 (E2F2) plays a significant role in tumor progression. However, its expression and biological function in HCC are still unclear. Therefore, we explored the relationship between E2F2 expression and tumor progression in HCC.
Methods: In this study, we utilized some online tools to explore the E2F2 expression in pan-carcinoma and HCC. The association of E2F2 expression with the clinical characteristics and prognosis of HCC was further studied. In addition, we explored the co-expressed genes of E2F2 and mined the positively/negatively corrected significant genes and excavated the possible functions. Meanwhile, the hub gene set was constructed based on protein–protein interaction (PPI) network, and the relationship between E2F2 and immunity was discovered.
Results: We observed that the expression level of E2F2 was generally upregulated in HCC. However, E2F2 expression was not significantly different between HCC and normal tissues in regard to the disease stage 4. Furthermore, we also observed the poor prognosis in patients with high E2F2 expression. The co-expressed genes of E2F2 were identified and further detected. Thereafter, we identified the positively/negatively corrected significant genes and constructed the hub gene network of E2F2 based on PPI network. We also found that E2F2 expression was positively correlated with the infiltration levels of CD4+ T, CD8+ T cells, macrophages, neutrophils, and dendritic cells.
Conclusion: Our findings suggested that E2F2 could be a potential prognostic factor for HCC, which could provide a therapeutic target for the molecular treatment of HCC.
Keywords: E2F2, hepatocellular carcinoma, prognosis, hub genes, diagnosis