HCV- and HBV-mediated liver cancer converge on similar transcriptomic landscapes and immune profiles.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a significant worldwide health challenge. The majority of cases are attributable to infection with hepatitis B (HBV) or C (HCV). HBV and HCV differ in their methods of transmission and how they cause cancer. Despite these differences, most treatment guidelines are ambivalent to the underlying viral etiology of the tumor. In the age of personalized medicine, we sought to determine how similar or different HCC was when mediated by HBV or HCV. Additionally, since previous work has demonstrated biological differences in the tumors between males and females, we sought to characterize the sex differences within viral-mediated HCC. We found that, although there are several genes with differences in HBV- and HCV-mediated tumors, the tumors appear to be more biologically similar than the corresponding tumor-adjacent tissue. This suggests a convergence on common pathways toward cancers even when the starting point differs. The lower number of female samples inhibits a full understanding of the biological differences between HCC in males and females. This presents a critical need in the field to increase the sampling of female cancers to enable a full understanding of the sex differences in HCC.