Expression and clinical significance of astrocyte elevated gene-1, β-catenin, and cyclin D1 in hepatocellular carcinoma / 临床肝胆病杂志

ABSTRACT

ObjectiveTo investigate the expression and clinical significance of astrocyte elevated gene-1 (AEG-1), β-catenin, and cyclin D1 in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tissues. MethodsA total of 40 HCC samples and 40 samples of corresponding para-carcinoma tissues from the patients with pathologically confirmed HCC who underwent surgery in The People′s Hospital of Guizhou from July 2013 to December 2014 were randomly selected, and 8 samples of normal liver tissues were selected as controls. The immunohistochemistry SP was used to measure the protein expression of AEG-1, β-catenin, and cyclin D1 in HCC tissues, corresponding para-carcinoma tissues, and normal liver tissues, and the correlation between their expression and HCC clinicopathological characteristics was analyzed. The chi-square test or Fisher′s exact test was used for comparison of categorical data between groups, and the Spearman rank correlation was used to analyze the correlation of AEG-1 with β-catenin, and cyclin D1 in HCC. ResultsHCC tissues and para-carcinoma tissues showed significantly higher protein expression of AEG-1, β-catenin, and cyclin D1 than normal liver tissues (χ2=7.840, 4.274, 8.817, 4.274, 9.919, and 4.850, P=0.005, 0.039, 0.003, 0.039, 0.002, and 0.028). The positive expression of AEG-1, β-catenin, and cyclin D1 showed no significant differences across the patients with different sexes, ages, HBsAg status, or tumor sizes (all P＞0.05), but showed significant differences across the patients with different degrees of pathological differentiation, TNM stages for liver cancer, and metastases (all P＜0.05). The correlation analysis showed that the protein expression of AEG-1 was positively correlated with that of β-catenin and cyclin D1 (r=0.420 and 0.741, both P＜0.01). ConclusionAEG-1, β-catenin, and cyclin D1 may play vital roles in the development and progression of HCC. AEG-1 may up-regulate the expression and activity of cyclin D1 and β-catenin and thus promote the development and metastasis of HCC. A combined measurement of AEG-1, β-catenin, and cyclin D1 can be used as an important parameter for HCC gene therapy and prognostic evaluation.