Language

English

Publication Date

3-1-2026

Journal

International Journal of Cancer

DOI

10.1002/ijc.70136

PMID

41013983

PMCID

PMC12765977

PubMedCentral® Posted Date

9-27-2025

PubMedCentral® Full Text Version

Post-print

Abstract

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) mortality is increasing globally, partly due to the growing prevalence of nonviral liver diseases. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified genetic variants associated with HCC development. Leveraging GWAS summary statistics and linkage disequilibrium score regression (LDSR), we investigated disease co-development with hepatitis C virus-negative (HCV-negative) HCC to provide unique insights into HCC etiology and prioritize relationships for further causal inquiry. We utilized the LDSR statistical framework to estimate the genetic correlation and heritability between HCV-negative HCC with 901 epidemiologic, behavioral, and clinical traits from the United Kingdom Biobank (UKBB). First, we set the threshold for observed scale heritability of each trait at 0.02 to ensure reliable inferences with adequate study power. Next, we observed significant positive genetic correlations between HCV-negative HCC and blood-based biomarkers of liver injury (ALT, GGT) and allostatic load (including glycated hemoglobin, blood pressure, and total albumin). We also identified a positive genetic correlation between HCV-negative HCC and diseases associated with metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), including diabetes, hypertension, chronic ischemic heart disease, and others. Taken together, our results help to identify polygenic and pleiotropic signals related to different phenotypic traits associated with HCC and support further exploration of the predictive power of blood-based biomarkers identified in this study for inferring HCC development among HCV-negative individuals.

Keywords

Humans, Carcinoma, Hepatocellular, Liver Neoplasms, Genome-Wide Association Study, Linkage Disequilibrium, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide, Male, Genetic Predisposition to Disease, Female, Middle Aged, Biomarkers, Tumor

Published Open-Access

yes

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