Study on the expression and clinical prognostic value of molecular chaperone proteins CCT4 and CCT8 in hepatocel-lular carcinoma tissue

Gao Xutong; Chen Dan; Li Lin; Guo Jing; Sun Hui; Zhang Feng

doi:10.3969/j.issn.1671-6450.2025.02.002

Abstract：Objective To study the expression of chaperonin containing TCP-1 complex 4(CCT4)and CCT8 in hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC)and their relationship with clinical prognosis.Methods A total of 126 patients with HCC who underwent surgical treatment in the Oncology Department of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Air Force Medical Uni-versity from February 2019 to January 2021 were selected.Real-time fluorescence quantitative PCR and immunohistochemis-try were used to detect the expression of CCT4 and CCT8 mRNA and protein in cancer tissues and adjacent tissues.Kap-lan-Meier curve was used to analyze the effect of CCT4 and CCT8 mRNA expression on the survival and prognosis of HCC patients.Cox regression model was used to analyze the prognostic factors of HCC patients.The receiver operating charac-teristic(ROC)curve was used to analyze the prognostic value of CCT4 and CCT8 mRNA expression levels in HCC patients.Results The positive rates of CCT4 and CCT8 in cancer tissues of HCC patients were 74.60％(94/126)and 7222％(91/126),respectively,which were higher than 7.94％(10/126)and 6.35％(8/126)in adjacent tissues(x2=115.522,114.612,P＜0.001).The relative expression levels of CCT4 and CCT8 mRNA in cancer tissues of HCC patients were higher than those in adjacent tissues(t=49.089,57.995,P＜0.001);The relative expression levels of CCT4 and CCT8 mRNA in HCC tis-sues with maximum tumor diameter ≥ 5 cm and CNLC stage Ⅱ-Ⅲ were higher than those with maximum tumor diameter＜5 cm and CNLC stage Ⅰ(t/P=29.970/＜0.001,20.331/＜0.001,29.046/＜0.001,20.777/＜0.001).The 3-year overall survival rate of CCT4 mRNA high expression group was 40.00％(24/60),which was lower than 63.64％(42/66)of low expression group(Log rank x2=9257,P=0.002).The 3-year overall survival rate of CCT8 mRNA high expression group was 35.48％(22/62),which was lower than that of low expression group(68.75％,44/64)(Log rank x2=18.720,P＜0.001).Tumor maxi-mum diameter ≥ 5 cm,CNLC stage Ⅱ-Ⅲ,high expression of CCT4 mRNA and high expression of CCT8 mRNA were inde-pendent risk factors affecting the prognosis of HCC patients[HR(95％CI)=1.768(1.238-2.526),1.611(1.175-2.209),1.859(1.330-2599),1.775(1275-2.473)].The AUC(95％CI)of blood CCT4 and CCT8 mRNA expression levels and their combined evaluation of HCC patient mortality prognosis were 0.821(0.682-0.961),0.736(0.486-0.983),and 0.881(0.788-0.967),respectively.The AUC of their combined evaluation was greater than that of blood CCT4 and CCT8 mRNA expres-sion levels evaluated separately(Z=3.895,4.083,both P＜0.001).Conclusion The expression of CCT4 and CCT8 in HCC is up-regulated,which is related to CNLC stage and tumor maximum diameter.It is a risk factor affecting the prognosis of HCC.The combination of CCT4 and CCT8 has a high evaluation value for the prognosis of HCC patients.