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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Med.
Sec. Hepatobiliary Diseases
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1571737
This article is part of the Research Topic Digital Technologies in Hepatology: Diagnosis, Treatment, and Epidemiological Insights View all 5 articles
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Background: DNA methylation carrying epigenetic aberrations could potentially serve as a noninvasive tool for revolutionizing cancer diagnosis and monitoring. Here, we comprehensively evaluated the diagnostic value of plasma methylated HIST1H3G, and constructed diagnostic and prognostic models aimed at facilitating early detection and improving the prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).The level of HIST1H3G promoter methylation in HCC tissues was evaluated based on the UALCAN database, followed by validation through serum samples collected from HCC patients. We recruited 205 participants, encompassing 70 HCC patients, 79 liver cirrhosis (LC) patients, 46 hepatitis patients and 10 HCC patients before and after treatment with either transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) or radiofrequency ablation (RFA). Analysis of plasma HIST1H3G was performed using methylation-specific quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). Diagnostic and prognostic prediction models were formulated using the random forest algorithm, and the performance of these models was rigorously evaluated through receiver operating characteristics curve (ROC) analysis.The methylation level of HIST1H3G was markedly elevated in both HCC tissues and plasma samples derived from HCC patients. HIST1H3G, PIVKA-Ⅱ, total bilirubin (TBIL) and age were selected as the optimal markers and were included in the development of a diagnostic model. This model demonstrated superior accuracy in distinguishing HCC from high-risk populations, outperforming alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) in both the training cohort consisting of LC patients and the validation cohort comprising hepatitis patients. Additionally, HIST1H3G and albumin (Alb) were chosen to establish a prediction model for early HCC diagnosis, and this model exhibited a remarkable ability to identify early HCC. Furthermore, our prognostic prediction model proved effective in predicting the prognosis and survival outcomes of HCC patients.
Keywords: hepatocellular carcinoma1, DNA methylation2, HIST1H3G3, Early diagnosis4, Prognosis5
Received: 06 Feb 2025; Accepted: 20 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhu, Wang, Cai, Lei, Yu, Ang and Yu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Zujiang Yu, Department of Infectious Diseases, First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, 450000, Henan Province, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
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