Expression of HOPX in cervical cancer tissues and blood serum and its correlation to CEAand CA125 / 中国肿瘤生物治疗杂志

ABSTRACT

@# Objective: To investigate the expression of HOPX gene in cervical cancer tissues and blood serum as well as its effect on cervical cancer HeLa cells, and to analyze its correlation to tumor maker CEAand CA125. Methods: 50 pairs of cervical cancer tissues and para-cancerous tissues as well as the peripheral blood samples from patients with cervical cancer, who were treated at Tianjin Binhai People’s Hospital and Tianjin Wuqing People’s Hospital from June 2015 to December 2017, were collected for this study; in addition, 50 samples of blood serum from healthy people were used as control. Real-time quantitative PCR (qRT-PCR) and immumohistochemical staining (IHC) were used to detect mRNA and protein expressions of HOPX in tissue and serum samples, NCBI-GEO data base and TCGA data base were used to collect the information on HOPX gene and patients’prognosis, and the correlation between HOPX expression and patients’prognosis was analyzed. Vectors over-expressing HOPX or control vectors were transfected into HeLa cells; MTT assay and colony formation assay were used to examine the proliferation ability of HeLa cells, Tranwell assay was used to detect the migration and invasion of HeLa cells, and Western blotting was used to detect the expression of EMT-related proteins. Results: Both sample examination and data base information showed that the expression level of HOPX was down-regulated in tissue and serum samples of cervical cancer patients and was positively related with the survival of patients (r=0.736， P<0.05); while it’s expression was negatively related to the level of CEAand CA125 in cervical cancer tissues and serum (r=-0.678, P<0.05). HOPX over-expression inhibited cell proliferation, migration and invasion, promoted the expression of E-cadherin but inhibited the expression of Vimentin and ICAM1 (all P<0.05 or P<0.001). Conclusion: HOPX is low expressed in cervical cancer tissues and blood samples, and negatively correlated with CEA and CA125, but positively correlated with the survival of patients. Thus, combination of HOPX and CEA/CA125 may improve the early diagnosis rate of cervical cancer and provide a new strategy for precision treatment of cervical cancer in future.