Circulating anti-p53 antibodies in patients with liver cirrhosis, hepatocellular carcinoma and some non hepatic malignant disorders

Recently, p53 aberrations has been considered as a relevant factor in hepatocarcinogenesis, in tumors from high risk and low risk areas. As p53 mutations result in increased p53 antigen levels, this cellular protein with prolonged half-life might become immunogenic during tumor development. For testing this assumption, in addition to its occurrence or.not in cirrhotic patients and in patients with malignant disease other than hepatocelluar carcinoma, we have analyzed sera from three groups of patients each include 20 individuals; HCCs, cirrhosis, and malignant diseases other than HCCs patients, in addition to 20 healthy individuals with age and sex matched were used as a control group. For the patients and control groups, circulating antibodies against p.53 were measured by anti-p53 ELISA kit provided by Pharma Cell, Paris, France and alpha feto protein assayed using ["one step" Immunoenzymatic mediated assay [IEMA], Sorin Biomedica Kit]. Anti-p53 antibodies were detected in sera of three patients [15%] out of 20 patients with HCCs, the same results were obtained in patients with malignant diseases other than HCCs while anti-p53 antibodies were not detected in sera of cirrhotic patients and healthy control groups. In [65%] [13 of 20] of the hepatocellular carcinoma sera the alpha feto protein levels were elevated. Among the [35%] [7 out of 20] alpha feto protein negative hepatocellular carcinoma patients no one were found to contain anti-p53 antibodies. All anti-p53 positive HCC cases had multiple hepatic focal lesions in this study, also, 33.3% of them showed well differentiated HCC and 66.7% showed moderately differentiated HCC, Also, 33.3% were positive for HBsAg and 66.7% were positive for anti-HCV Ab. In conclusion, the presence of anti-p53 antibodies according to the results obtained in the current study, were specific for malignancy as these antibodies were detected in some HCC patients and patients who suffered from malignant diseases other than HCC with the same percent, but did not detect among cirrhotic patients or healthy individuals, also, these anti-p53 antibodies were independent of AFP status as we did not find any correlation between these anti-p53 antibodies and serum AFP among HCC patients group