Pan-cancer analysis and the oncogenic role of Glypican 1 in hepatocellular carcinoma

Abstract

Recent studies indicate that Glypican 1 (GPC-1) is aberrantly expressed and plays a key role in certain cancers, but little is known in the hepatocellular carcinoma. Raw data from TCGA, GTEx and TIMER databases were utilized to comprehensively analyze GPC-1 expression landscape in pan-cancer, and the biological function of GPC-1 was investigated in liver cancer cells. The results revealed that GPC-1 is highly expressed in HCC, negatively correlated with survival, and also positively correlated with immune infiltration and clinical stage. Furthermore, GPC-1 promoted cell proliferation and inhibited apoptosis in the HCC cell lines. WGCNA analysis and HCCDB database revealed that Akt acted as a key molecule related to GPC-1, influencing biological functions and regulating cell malignant behaviors via the AKT signaling pathway. In conclusion, our findings provide a relatively comprehensive understanding of the oncogenic role of GPC-1 in HCC, implying that GPC-1 could serve as an innovative therapeutic target.