Senescent fibroblasts secrete CTHRC1 to promote cancer stemness in hepatocellular carcinoma
Our study revealed that SCAFs were strongly correlated with cancer stemness in HCC. A novel machine learning model based on senescent CAF-related genes was constructed to accurately predict prognosis in HCC patients. Furthermore, CTHRC1 was identified as a novel prognostic and therapeutic biomarker to predict poor prognosis in HCC and promote cancer stemness and metastasis through the Notch signaling pathway, with its expression being transcriptionally regulated by SOX4.
Authors
- Hai Hui Huang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7430-0119)
- Mengdie Cao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6773-3952)
- Shuya Bai (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-9333-0817)
- Shiru Chen
- Yuchong Zhao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2245-8541)
- Peng Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5889-1115)
- Bin Cheng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1568-8760)
- Wei Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9600-1336)
- Luyao Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5241-967X)
- Qiaodan Zhou
- Ronghua Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1864-4827)
- Haochen Cui
- Jingwen Liang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-7973-2818)
- Si Xiong
Institutions
- University of Pittsburgh (US)
- Chinese University of Hong Kong (HK)
- Tongji Hospital (CN)
- Huazhong University of Science and Technology (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Cell Communication and Signaling
- Published
- 2025-08-25
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1186/s12964-025-02369-8
- Citations
- 9
- Primary Topic
- Cancer Genomics and Diagnostics
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 8.43
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Huazhong University of Science and Technology