Exploring hub genes in hepatocellular carcinoma using a systems biology approach

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) as a prevalent malignancy is the fourth leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide(Yang et al., ۲۰۱۹). Most patients in the early stages of the disease can be treated by surgical resection and liver transplantation but it should be noted that most individuals present symptoms of progression at the time of identification which can complicate the treatment process with conventional therapies like chemotherapy and radiotherapy(Huang et al., ۲۰۱۳). For this reason, despite tangible advances in early diagnosis and development of new therapies, the prognosis of these patients is still poor and the ۵-year survival rate is less than ۲۵%(Yan & Liu, ۲۰۱۹). Therefore, further research to elucidate the molecular mechanisms of HCC to develop novel methods for treatment and early diagnosis is extremely urgent. Recently, analysis of gene expression profiles using bioinformatics tools has opened a new way to achieve this goal.