Effect of urokinase-type plasminogen activator combined with clinical stage and Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer stage on the prognosis of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma

The aim of this investigation is to evaluate the association and potential mechanism between plasminogen activator urokinase (PLAU) and the prognosis of patients with liver hepatocellular carcinoma (LIHC). We verified PLAU expression and its correlation with LIHC patients' prognosis in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. The interaction network for protein-gene was established in the GeneMania database and the STRING database, and the association between PLAU and immune cells was assessed in Tumor Immune Estimation Resource (TIMER) and TCGA databases. The potential physiological mechanism was elucidated by the Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) enrichment assessment. Finally, the individual clinical data of 100 LIHC patients were retrospectively evaluated to further analyze the clinical value of PLAU. The PLAU expression in LIHC tissues was greater than in paracancerous tissues, and LIHC patients with low PLAU expression had better disease-specific survival (DSS), overall survival (OS), and progression free interval (PFI) than those with high PLAU expression. In the TIMER database, the PLAU expression was positively associated with six kinds of infiltrating immune cells: CD4 T, neutrophils, CD8 T, macrophages, B, and dendritic cells, while GSEA enrichment analysis indicated PLAU may impact the biological activities of LIHC by taking part in MAPK and JAK_STAT signaling pathways, angiogenesis, and P53. There were statistically significant differences in T-stage and Edmondson grading between the two groups of patients with high and low expression of PLAU (P