Clinical significance of cyclin‑dependent kinase inhibitor 3 in hepatocellular carcinoma

The aim of the present study was to determine the expression of cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor 3 (CDKN3) as well as its clinical value in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) using bioinformatic analysis. The expression of CDKN3 in HCC and its correlation with HCC prognosis were analyzed using the UALCAN and SangerBox databases. The findings obtained from the UALCAN database were validated using immunohistochemistry. The Assistant for Clinical Bioinformatics database was employed for the unifactorial and multifactorial analyses regarding the correlation between CDKN3 and pathways, and the STRING database served for the correlation analysis between CDKN3 and proteins. The results revealed that CDKN3 expression increases in tumor tissues and corresponds with an increase in the tumor stage. CDKN3 crucially affects prognosis of patients with HCC and is an essential factor for the diagnosis and prognosis of this condition. CDKN3 expression in HCC is mainly related to pathways for DNA repair, fatty acid degradation, G2M checkpoints, MYC targets, selenium compound metabolism and tumor proliferation. The role of CDKN3 in HCC was found to be related to genes including <i>PTTG2</i>, <i>BIRC5</i>, <i>CKS2</i>, <i>CCNB2</i> and <i>CCNA2</i>. In conclusion, CDKN3 exhibits a high expression in HCC tumor tissues, and such expression substantially affects tumor patients' prognosis. The role of CDKN3 role in HCC is closely related to cell cycle-related pathways, showing its potential as a therapeutic target for HCC and as an indicator for the determination of prognosis.