Emerging evidence indicates that various functional genes with altered expression are involved in the tumor progression of human cancers. This study is aimed at identifying novel key genes that may be used for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) diagnosis, prognosis, and targeted therapy. This study included 3 expression profiles (GSE45267, GSE74656, and GSE84402), which were obtained from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO). GEO2R was used to analyze the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between HCC and normal samples. The functional and pathway enrichment analysis was performed by the Database for Annotation, Visualization and Integrated Discovery. A protein-protein interaction (PPI) network of the identified DEGs was constructed using the Search Tool for the Retrieval of Interacting Gene, and hub genes were identified. ONCOMINE and CCLE databases were used to verify the expression of the hub genes in HCC tissues and cells. Kaplan-Meier plotter was used to assess the effects of the hub genes on the overall survival of HCC patients. A total of 99 DEGs were identified from the 3 expression profiles. These DEGs were enriched with functional processes and pathways related to HCC pathogenesis. From the PPI network, 5 hub genes were identified. The expression of the 5 hub genes was all upregulated in HCC tissues and cells compared with the control tissues and cells. Kaplan-Meier survival curves indicated that high expression of cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK1), cyclin B1 (CCNB1), cyclin B2 (CCNB2), MAD2 mitotic arrest deficient-like 1 (MAD2L1), and topoisomerase IIα (TOP2A) predicted poor overall survival in HCC patients (all log-rank P<0.01). These results revealed that the DEGs may serve as candidate key genes during HCC pathogenesis. The 5 hub genes, including CDK1, CCNB1, CCNB2, MAD2L1, and TOP2A, may serve as promising prognostic biomarkers in HCC.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a type of obstructive lung disease characterized by long-term poor airflow. Recently, variants in the hypoxia-inducible factor 1α ( HIF1A ) gene were found to be associated with COPD risk. This study aimed to identify whether rs10873142 polymorphism (an intronic polymorphism) in HIF1A gene was related to COPD in a Chinese population. We genotyped HIF1A gene rs10873142 polymorphism in a case-control study with 235 COPD cases and 548 controls in a Chinese Han population. Odd ratios and 95% confidence intervals were estimated using the chi-squared (χ2) test, genetic model analysis, and stratification analysis. In the genetic model analysis, we found that the TT genotype (TT vs CC: OR 1.63; 95% CI, 1.02-2.60; P = 0.042) and T allele (T VS C: OR 1.29; 95%CI, 1.02-1.60; P = 0.032) showed significantly correlation with the risk of COPD. However, in stratification analyses of Age, BMI, and FEV1/FEV, we failed to find any association between HIF1A gene rs10873142 polymorphism with COPD risk. This study supports that HIF1A gene rs10873142 polymorphism may be associated with increased risk of COPD in a Chinese Han population. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first case-control study uncovering that the HIF1A gene rs10873142 polymorphism increases the risk of COPD in a Chinese Han population.

Introduction: Immunogenic cell death (ICD) is a form of regulated cell death that activates an adaptive immune response in an immunocompetent host and is particularly sensitive to antigens from tumor cells. Kidney clear cell carcinoma (KIRC) is an immunogenic tumor with extensive tumor heterogeneity. However, no reliable predictive biomarkers have been identified to reflect the immune microenvironment and therapeutic response of KIRC.Methods: Therefore, we used the CIBERSORT and ESTIMATE algorithms to define three ICD clusters based on the expression of ICD-related genes in 661 KIRC patients. Subsequently, we identified three different ICD gene clusters based on the overlap of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) within the ICD clusters. In addition, principal component analysis (PCA) was performed to calculate the ICD scores.Results: The results showed that patients with reduced ICD scores had a poorer prognosis and reduced transcript levels of immune checkpoint genes regulated with T cell differentiation. Furthermore, the ICD score was negatively correlated with the tumor mutation burden (TMB) value of KICD. patients with higher ICD scores showed clinical benefits and advantages of immunotherapy, indicating that the ICD score is an accurate and valid predictor to assess the effect of immunotherapy.Discussion: Overall, our study presents a comprehensive KICD immune-related ICD landscape that can provide guidance for current immunotherapy and predict patient prognosis to help physicians make judgments about the patient’s disease and treatment modalities, and can guide current research on immunotherapy strategies for KICD.

Objectives This is a protocol for a Cochrane Review (intervention). The objectives are as follows: To assess the effects of coronary artery bypass surgery versus medical therapy alone in people with ischaemic heart disease.