ncRNAs-mediated high expression of TICRR promotes tumor cell proliferation and migration and is correlated with poor prognosis and tumor immune infiltration of hepatocellular carcinoma

TICRR is a regulatory factor of DNA replication with ToPBP1 interaction. At present, the underlying function and mecha-nisms of TICRR remain unclear in LIHC. Our objective was to assess the function and prognosis of TICRR in LIHC. We conducted a differential expression analysis, GO/KEGG, and GSEA enrichment analysis of TICRR in LIHC. We also carried out the gene frequency and SCNA of TICRR. We found that TICRR could serve as an independent prognostic marker LIHC by univariate and multivariate analysis. In addition, we observed that TICRR was related to immune infiltration, and TICRR had positive correlation with PD1/PD-L1 and CTLA-4 in LIHC. The hsa-miR-126-3p/IPO9-AS1 may the candidate ncRNAs to regulate the expression of TICRR. The high rate of SCNV of TICRR might have critical effect on the function of CTL cells in LIHC. We further demonstrate through a series of experiments that TICRR facilitated the pro-liferation and metastasis of liver cancer cells in vitro. Alto-gether, TICRR might be a potential biomarker and therapeutic target in LIHC.

Automated summary

This study evaluated the function and prognosis of TICRR in liver cancer and found that it could serve as an independent prognostic marker. TICRR was also found to be related to immune infiltration and had a positive correlation with PD1/PD-L1 and CTLA-4. Additionally, experiments demonstrated that TICRR facilitated the proliferation and metastasis of liver cancer cells in vitro. These findings suggest that TICRR might be a potential biomarker and therapeutic target in liver cancer.