Abstract
Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are a subset of cancer cells with stem cell characteristics. The discovery of CSCs has opened a new era for cancer research. CSCs not only play a critical role in tumorigenesis, but also are responsible for the failure of cancer treatments. Here, we performed weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) to identify key stemness genes and prognostic signatures using the data of an Asian liver cancer patient cohort and a White liver cancer patient cohort in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. To compare the difference in tumorigenesis between the Asian patients and the White patients, the prognostic value of the key genes from the Asian patients was evaluated in the White patient cohort and vice versa. We found that some key genes could predict the survival of the patients regardless of race. In addition, the key genes, NUCB2 and KLF4A, were selected from Asian patients and White patients, respectively, for further experimental validation. Knocking down NUCB2 could inhibit the activity of the AKT/mTOR signaling pathway and reverse the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in liver cancer cells. We also confirmed that the knockdown of KLF4A suppressed ABCG2 activity and reduced the side population (SP) in liver cancer cells for the first time. Our results suggest that the stemness index is a useful method to identify key genes in tumorigenesis. Compared to the analysis for all patients, applying this index to the analysis of the patients of different races will provide more potential therapeutic targets for cancer treatment.