Project description:HCC has a poor response to therapy and a bad prognosis with chronic inflammation be the most common etiologies for HCC progression. Here we report a redox-dependent regulation mechanism of PIR protein nuclear shuttling, leading to liver inflammation and HCC progression.
Project description:The variability in the prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients suggests that HCC may comprise several distinctive biological phenotypes. These phenotypes may result from different neoplastic pathways during the tumorigenesis and/or from a different cell of origin. Here we address if the transcriptional characteristics of the HCC would provide insight into the cellular origin of the tumors. We integrated gene expression data from rat fetal hepatoblasts and adult hepatocytes, HCC from mouse models, and human HCC. The HCC patients who shared gene expression patterns with fetal hepatoblasts showed extremely poor prognosis when compared with those lacking the hepatoblast signature. The gene expression program that distinguishes this novel subtype from the rest of HCC includes well known markers of hepatic oval cells, suggesting that HCC in this subtype may arise from hepatic progenitor cells. Two independent gene network analyses of the gene expression signature characteristic for the tumors sharing the hepatoblast expression patterns revealed that activation of AP-1 transcription factors might play key roles in tumor development in the newly identified HCC subtype. In addition, by applying hepatoblast-specific and genome-wide global signatures, HCC patients were further stratified into three distinct subgroups with a significant association with overall survival and recurrence. Total RNAs from 19 normal livers were pooled and used as the reference for all microarray experiments. To obtain gene expression profile data from 49 human HCC, 20 µg of total RNAs from tissues were used to drive fluorescently (Cy-5 or Cy-3) labeled cDNA. At least two hybridizations were carried out for each tissue using a dye-swap strategy to eliminate dye labeling bias.
Project description:Using RNA-seq analysis, we study a DEN-induced HCC rat model during fibrosis progression and HCC development with special focus on liver inflammatory microenvironment. RNA-seq results show that DEN-induced liver tumors in rat model share remarkable molecular characteristics with human HCC, especially with HCC associated with high proliferation. In conclusion, our study provides detailed insight into the hepatocarcinogenesis in a commonly used model of HCC, facilitating the future use of this model for preclinical testing.
Project description:Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Sorafenib, a multikinase inhibitor, is the first-line systemic therapy approved for advanced HCC, but its impact on the tumor microenvironment, particularly on myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs), is not fully understood.MDSCs are a heterogeneous population of immune cells that play a crucial role in promoting tumor growth and immune evasion by suppressing T cell function and facilitating an immunosuppressive microenvironment. This study investigates the effects of sorafenib on the function and phenotype of MDSCs in HCC.
Project description:The variability in the prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients suggests that HCC may comprise several distinctive biological phenotypes. These phenotypes may result from different neoplastic pathways during the tumorigenesis and/or from a different cell of origin. Here we address if the transcriptional characteristics of the HCC would provide insight into the cellular origin of the tumors. We integrated gene expression data from rat fetal hepatoblasts and adult hepatocytes, HCC from mouse models, and human HCC. The HCC patients who shared gene expression patterns with fetal hepatoblasts showed extremely poor prognosis when compared with those lacking the hepatoblast signature. The gene expression program that distinguishes this novel subtype from the rest of HCC includes well known markers of hepatic oval cells, suggesting that HCC in this subtype may arise from hepatic progenitor cells. Two independent gene network analyses of the gene expression signature characteristic for the tumors sharing the hepatoblast expression patterns revealed that activation of AP-1 transcription factors might play key roles in tumor development in the newly identified HCC subtype. In addition, by applying hepatoblast-specific and genome-wide global signatures, HCC patients were further stratified into three distinct subgroups with a significant association with overall survival and recurrence. Keywords: individual genetic characteristic design
Project description:RNA-sequencing of Human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cells We analyzed two circRNA profiles expressed in human HCC tissues and identified circRHOT1 as a conserved and dramatically upregulated circRNA in HCC tissues. HCC patients displaying high circRHOT1 level possessed poor prognosis. We demonstrated circRHOT1 significantly promoted HCC growth and metastasis. In order to investigate the mechansim of circRHOT1, we constructed circRHOT1-deficient HCC cell lines. Through RNA-sequencing, we sough to identify the key gene regulated by circRHOT1 in HCC.
Project description:Although many protein-coding genes have been identified to be aberrantly expressed in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), the mechanisms that account for development and progression of HCC remain unclear. In recent years, long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been shown to have critical regulatory roles in mammalian cell biology. Many lncRNAs can result in aberrant expression of gene products that may contribute to cancer biology. In this study, we first identified non-overlapping signatures of a small number of lncRNAs that are aberrantly expressed in human HCC compared with paired peritumoral tissues. Then we used real-time PCR to validate five lncRNAs whose expression was altered in HCC compared with paired peritumoral tissues. Using loss-of-function and gain-of-function approaches, we found that an lncRNA (termed lncRNA-HEIH) plays a key role in cell cycle regulation. We further demonstrated that lncRNA-HEIH bound to enhancer of zeste homolog 2 (EZH2) and that this interaction was required for the repression of EZH2 target genes. Together, these results reveal insights into the molecular regulation mechanisms of HCC cell cycle regulation and lead us to propose that lncRNAs may serve as key regulatory hubs in cancer biology. A ten chip study using total RNA recovered from five separate HCC tissues and five corresponding paired non-tumor samples.