Fig. 1: Transcriptomic stratification of patients with HCC beyond the Milan criteria undergoing LT and their clinical correlations.

A Heatmap representing significantly enriched pathways (KEGG and WikiPathway databases) in three RNA-seq subgroups. B, C Kaplan‒Meier curves for OS or HCC recurrence based on RNA-seq subgroups (log-rank test). D Boxplots of AFP levels and tumor size, and column plot of tumor nodules in three RNA-seq subgroups (Low-risk n = 39, Medium-risk n = 30, High-risk n = 31). P values are derived from the Kruskal‒Wallis rank sum test, ANOVA F test and Pearson’s chi-squared test. P values are shown on the graphs. Boxplot shows the median (center line), 25th, and 75th percentile (lower and upper boundary). The upper whisker extends from the upper boundary to the maxima value no further than 1.5 × IQR from the boundary. The lower whisker extends from the lower boundary to the minima value at most 1.5 × IQR of the boundary. Data beyond the end of the whiskers are outlying points and are plotted individually. E The NTP method was used to divide the validation cohort (from the Second Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University and the Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University) samples into three subtypes. The heatmap illustrates the RNA-seq expression profiles of characteristic genes in samples with subtype prediction (FDR < 0.01). F, G Kaplan‒Meier curves for OS or HCC recurrence based on RNA-seq subgroups (log-rank test) in the validation cohort. HCC hepatocellular carcinoma, LT liver transplantation, OS overall survival, AFP alpha fetal protein, NES normalized enrichment score, HR hazard rate, IQR interquartile range, NTP Nearest Template Prediction, FDR false discovery rate; In OS status, 1 dead, 0 alive.