Prognostic value and potential mechanism of cellular senescence and tumor microenvironment in hepatocellular carcinoma: Insights from bulk transcriptomics and single‐cell sequencing analysis

The high mortality rate and postoperative recurrence of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) contribute to the burden on society and healthcare. The prognostic value and underlying mechanisms of cellular senescence and tumor microenvironment (TME) in HCC remain unclear. Bulk transcriptomic data were obtained from 368 HCC samples in The Cancer Genome Atlas‐liver hepatocellular carcinoma cohort and 64 samples from the GSE116174 dataset. Single‐cell RNA sequencing (scRNA‐seq) data of HCC were obtained from the GSE149614 dataset, including 18 tumor samples from 10 patients. Prognosis‐related cellular senescence genes and immune cells were identified through univariate analysis. Least absolute shrinkage and selection operator regression analysis was performed to construct the CellAge score and TME score, both of which were identified as independent prognostic factors for HCC based on multivariate Cox analysis. The combined CellAge and TME scores showed improved prognostic stratification for HCC patients, as confirmed by multivariate Cox analysis (p