High expression of NME1 correlates with progression and poor prognosis in patients of hepatocellular carcinoma.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignancies that results from genes regulation via different pathways. NME/NM23 nucleoside diphosphate kinase 1 (NME1) is generally regarded as a metastasis suppressor, but its function in HCC is largely unknown. In our study, we explored the role of in HCC. By analyzing the gene expression omnibus (GEO) database, we discovered that was more highly expressed in HCC tumor tissues than non-HCC liver tissues ( < 0.001), and was significantly up-regulated in HCC tumor tissues than in adjacent normal tissues ( < 0.001). Then, validated by the enrolled HCC patients and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database, was upregulated in HCC tumor tissues compared with matched adjacent normal tissue ( < 0.05). Besides, NME1 was down-regulated in Stage III/IV HCC patients than Stage I/II HCC patients ( = 0.009). Moreover, Kaplan-Meier analysis showed that HCC patients with high expression had poor overall survival ( = 0.004) and higher recurrence rate ( < 0.001). Our data revealed that was a special oncogene, and its expression was significantly associated with the progression and prognosis of HCC. may be a novel molecular biomarker for the targeted therapy and prognosis of HCC.