ABSTRACT
Objective To study the expressions of HnRNPA1 in patients with recurrent or metastatic hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) after liver transplantation.Methods The expressions of HnRNPA1 protein in pericarcinoma and normal liver tissues were detected using Western blot analysis in 16 patients with HCC.Immunohistochemical analysis was done in 141 patients with HCC.All these patients underwent liver transplantation.The relationship between the expressions of HnRNPA1 with recurrent and metastatic HCC were analyzed.Results The positive expression rate of HnRNPA1 protein in the HCC tissues (75.0％,12/16) was significantly higher than that in the pericarcinoma tissues (18.8％,3/16) (P ＜ 0.01).The expression of HnRNPA1 was positively correlated with tumor size,TNM type,vascular invasion and tumor encapsulation (P ＜ 0.01).Tumor recurrence in the HnRNPA1 high expression group was significantly higher than that in the HnRNPA1 low expression group (x2 =15.577,P ＜ 0.01).The survival rate was significantly lower in the high HnRNPA1 expression than that in the low expression group (x2 =6.309,P ＜0.05).Conclusion The expression of HnRNPA1 protein was a marker which predicted HCC recurrence or metastasis in patients after liver transplantation.