Elevated expression of UHRF1 predicts unfavorable prognosis for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma

Aims: The present study was designed to evaluate the different expression of ubiquitin-like with PHD and ring finger domains 1 (UHRF1) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tissues and the adjacent normal tissues, further explore the correlation between UHRF1 expression and the prognosis of HCC patients. Methods: The UHRF1 expression at protein level in HCC tissues and the adjacent normal tissues were measured by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Chi-square test was used to estimate the relationship between UHRF1 expression and clinicopathologic characteristics of HCC patients. The overall survival of HCC patients with diverse expression of UHRF1 was measured by Kaplan-Meier analysis. Cox regression analysis was conducted to judge the prognostic value of UHRF1 in HCC patients. Results: The UHRF1 was over-expressed in HCC tissues compared with the adjacent normal tissues according to the outcome of HPLC (P<0.001). Besides, the UHRF1 expression was tightly related to distant metastasis, cancer area, and HBV (P<0.05), but shared no correlation with gender, cirrhosis, and bilirubin (P>0.05). Patients with high UHRF1 expression had a shorter overall survival time than those with low UHRF1 expression (P<0.001). Cox regression analysis showed that UHRF1 was significantly linked with the prognosis of HCC patients (P=0.002, HR=5.807, 95% CI=1.901-17.742). Conclusion: UHRF1 was over-expressed in HCC tissues compared to the adjacent normal tissues and UHRF1 expression shared significant relevance with distant metastasis, cancer area and HBV. It could be an important and independent prognostic biomarker for HCC patients.