Integrated multiomic analysis reveals comprehensive tumor heterogeneity in primary and recurrent hepatocellular carcinomas

The tumor heterogeneity between the primary and recurrent hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has rarely been explored. The present study aims to illustrate the heterogeneity between the primary and recurrent tumors by integrating multiomic analyses. This study included 18 HCC patients with matched initial-relapsed tumors. We performed whole exome sequencing (WES), RNA sequencing and DIA-based proteomics analyses of all tumor and adjacent liver tissues. All recurrent tumors were divided into intrahepatic metastasis (IM) group and multi-centric (MC) tumor occurrence group. We explored the difference between IM and MC groups in the tumor mutation, tumor evolution, CNV, transcriptomic and proteomic levels. Additionally, we analyzed the KEGG pathways associated with tumor recurrence in the IM group. Lastly, the Sorafenib-targeted alterations were explored and linked to the clinical responses rate to Sorafenib treatment.