Effects of periostin on hepatocellular carcinoma cells invasion, metastasis and prognosis / 中华肝脏病杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective@#To investigate the prognostic relationship between the expression levels of periostin (POSTN) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tissues as well as its effect in invasion and metastasis.@*Methods@#The expression levels of POSTN in liver cancer tissues were detected with real-time quantitative PCR (QPCR) and immunohistochemistry (IHC). Kaplan-Meier method and Log-rank test were used to analyze the relationship between POSTN expression level and postoperative prognosis in patients with liver cancer. The expression of POSTN in hepatocellular carcinoma cells with different metastasis characteristics were detected in vitro and the overexpression of POSTN in low metastatic hepatocellular carcinoma cells was mediated through plasmid transfection techniques. The effects of POSTN on invasion and metastasis of hepatocellular carcinoma cells were determined by transwell migration and matrigel invasion assay. The comparative expression level of POSTN was analyzed by t-test.@*Results@#The expression levels of POSTN in tissues from high to low was in the order of metastatic liver cancer tissues, non-metastatic liver cancer tissues and normal liver tissues (P = 0.006). The median survival time and 3-year survival rate in postoperative patients with hepatocellular carcinoma of high POSTN expression level were significantly lower than the low expression group (10.00 months, 44.44%; 59.00 months, 53.13%, P = 0.031 2). In in vitro testing, the expression of POSTN was highest in MHCC97H cells with high metastatic characteristics as compared with Huh7 and MHCC97L cells with low and medium metastatic characteristics. After overexpression of POSTN in MHCC97L cells, the migration and invasion capacity of MHCC97L cells was increased.@*Conclusion@#POSTN is associated with pathological processes such as metastasis and invasion of liver cancer, which may promote the migration and invasion of liver cancer cells. It is expected to be an important prognostic biomarker of tumor recurrence and a therapeutic target for inhibiting the occurrence of metastasis in postoperative patients with hepatocellular carcinoma.