mRNA profiles of 50 HB tumors

Hepatoblastoma (HB) is the most common liver cancer in children, but few pre-treatment tumors have been molecularly profiled. Consequently, there are no validated prognostic or therapeutic biomarkers for HB patients. We report on molecular analysis of 88 clinically-annotated HB tumors. This analysis pointed to three risk-stratifying molecular subtypeslow, intermediate and high riskthat are characterized by differential activation of hepatic progenitor cell markers and metabolic pathways. High-risk tumors are characterized by high NFE2L2 activity and LIN28B, HMGA2, SALL4 and AFP expression, low let-7 expression and HNF1A activity, and high coordinated expression of oncofetal proteins and stem cell markers. Tests on a 35 HB validation set supported these genes as prognostic biomarkers.

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Sumazin P, Chen Y, Treviño LR, Sarabia SF, Hampton OA, Patel K, Mistretta TA, Zorman B, Thompson P, Heczey A, Comerford S, Wheeler DA, Chintagumpala M, Meyers R, Rakheja D, Finegold MJ, Tomlinson G, Parsons DW, López-Terrada D