Fig. 1

ACSL3 is highly expressed in the metastatic tumor tissues of HCC patients and positively correlated with the activity of lipid metabolism and poor prognosis HCC patients. (A) Heatmap of differentially expressed proteins in the matched primary and postoperative lung metastatic tumor tissues of three HCC patients. (B) TCGA database showing the HR of top five genes (ACSL3, ATAD5, COBL, TIM9, and SKT) for the overall survival of cancer patients.(C-E) UMAP visualization (C), ACSL3 expression level (D), and lipid metabolism level (E) of total cell types in the tumor tissues of four HCC patients in GSE146115 dataset. (F) GO analysis of DEGs in the tumor cells of four HCC patients in GSE146115 dataset. (G) TCGA database showing ACSL3 expression in normal liver tissues (n = 50) and tumor tissues (n = 369) of HCC patients. (H, I) TCGA database showing OS (H) and DSS (I) of HCC patients with different ACSL3 expression levels. (J) Immunohistochemistry (IHC) analysis of ACSL3 expression in the matched adjacent, primary, and postoperative lung metastatic tumor tissues of one HCC patient. (K) ACSL3 score determined by IHC analysis of the matched adjacent, primary, and postoperative lung metastatic tumor tissues of HCC patients (n = 8). (L, M) OS (L) and DFS (M) of HCC patients (n = 116) with different ACSL3 expression levels. (N) RFP of HCC patients (n = 116) with different ACSL3 scores. *** p < 0.001