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©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Oncol. Nov 15, 2025; 17(11): 111142
Published online Nov 15, 2025. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.v17.i11.111142
Published online Nov 15, 2025. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.v17.i11.111142
5’-transfer RNA halve-lysine-CTT as a promising biomarker for early detection of hepatocellular carcinoma
Jie Yuan, Xian-Juan Shen, Xian Li, Lei Shen, Yan Zhang, Shao-Qing Ju, Department of Laboratory Medicine, Affiliated Hospital of Nantong University, Nantong 226001, Jiangsu Province, China
Wen-Chao Gu, Department of Special Laboratory Center, Affiliated Hospital of Nantong University, Nantong 226001, Jiangsu Province, China
Tian-Xin Xu, Department of General Surgery, Affiliated Hospital of Nantong University, Nantong 226001, Jiangsu Province, China
Co-first authors: Jie Yuan and Wen-Chao Gu.
Author contributions: Yuan J, Gu WC, and Xu TX contributed to data curation, design methodology and visualization; Yuan J, Gu WC, Xu TX, and Shen L contributed to software; Yuan J, Gu WC, Xu TX, and Zhang Y contributed to formal analysis; Yuan J, Gu WC, Li X, and Zhang Y contributed to investigation; Yuan J, Gu WC, and Ju SQ contributed to writing-review & editing and funding acquisition; Yuan J and Xu TX contributed to writing-original draft; Yuan J, Shen XJ, and Ju SQ contributed to conceptualization; Gu WC, Xu TX, Li X, and Shen L contributed to resources; Shen XJ and Ju SQ contributed to project administration and validation; Ju SQ contributed to supervision. Yuan J and Gu WC contributed equally to this manuscript and are co-first authors.
Supported by the Scientific Research Project of Nantong Municipal Commission of Health and Family Planning, No. QN2023001.
Institutional review board statement: The study conformed to the provisions of the Declaration of Helsinki. This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Affiliated Hospital of Nantong University (Approval No. 2023-L059).
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: Sequence data that support the findings of this study have been deposited in the Gene Expression Omnibus repository, series GSE282472.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Shao-Qing Ju, MD, PhD, Professor, Department of Laboratory Medi
Received: June 25, 2025
Revised: August 15, 2025
Accepted: October 17, 2025
Published online: November 15, 2025
Processing time: 142 Days and 16.5 Hours
Revised: August 15, 2025
Accepted: October 17, 2025
Published online: November 15, 2025
Processing time: 142 Days and 16.5 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: Through high-throughput sequencing, we found transfer RNA (tRNA)-derived small RNA differentially expressed in early-stage hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tissues. 5’-tRNA halve (tiRNA)-lysine (Lys)-CTT, one of the tRNA-derived small RNAs, had great diagnostic efficacy and potential as new “liquid biopsy” biomarkers for the diagnosis of early stage of HCC. We speculated that 5’-tiRNA-Lys-CTT may be involved in multiple cancer-related signaling pathways, and would like to investigate the specific mechanisms of 5’-tiRNA-Lys-CTT in HCC in future studies.