Inflammatory microenvironment of fibrotic liver promotes hepatocellular carcinoma growth, metastasis and sorafenib resistance through STAT3 activation.

ABSTRACT: The pro-inflammatory and pro-fibrotic liver microenvironment facilitates hepatocarcinogenesis. However, the effects and mechanisms by which the hepatic fibroinflammatory microenvironment modulates intrahepatic hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) progression and its response to systematic therapy remain largely unexplored. We established a syngeneic orthotopic HCC mouse model with a series of persistent liver injury induced by CCl₄ gavage, which mimic the dynamic effect of hepatic pathology microenvironment on intrahepatic HCC growth and metastasis. Non-invasive bioluminescence imaging was applied to follow tumour progression over time. The effect of the liver microenvironment modulated by hepatic injury on sorafenib resistance was investigated in vivo and in vitro. We found that the

SUBMITTER: Jiang Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7875922 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature