Preliminary Study On The Role And Function Of MAZ In Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Objective: The aim of the study is to detect the expression of MAZ in hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC) tissues and adjacent noncancerous tissues, and then to investigate the relationship between MAZ and clinicopathological features and prognosis of HCC. We also analysed the correlation between MAZ and ZEB1、ZEB2,and the effect of silencing MAZ on the biological characteristics of HCC cells, to preliminarily explore the role of MAZ in carcinogenesis of HCC.Methods: Immunohistochemical technique was used to detect the expression of MAZ, ZEB1 and ZEB2 on tissue microarray slice obtained from 75 cases of HCC tissues and adjacent noncancerous tissues. The relationship between MAZ and clinicopathological features and prognosis of HCC, and the correlation between MAZ and ZEB1 、 ZEB2 were investigated by statistical analysis.RT-PCR 、 Western blot technique was used to detect the mRNA and protein expression of MAZ in 35 pairs of HCC tissues and adjacent noncancerous tissues.CCK-8, cell clone formation experiment, Scratch test, Matrigel Transwell assay and Flow cytometry were used to investigate the effect of MAZ on the biologicalcharacteristics of HCC cells.Results:(1) The expression of MAZ in HCC tissues was significantly higher than that in adjacent noncancerous tissues which was detected by immunohistochemistry, RT-PCR and Western blot(P<0.05). The expression of MAZ in HCC tissues was related to tumor diameter, AFP and metastasis.Moreover, the positive expression of MAZ indicated a poor prognosis of HCC patients.(2)The protein expression level of ZEB1 andZEB2 in HCC tissues was significantly higher than that in adjacent noncancerous tissues which was detected by immunohistochemistry(P<0.05)and the expression of MAZ had a positive correlation with the expression of ZEB1 and ZEB2.(3)There was a significant decline in the proliferation, migration and invasion of SMMC-7721 cell line and the apoptosis increased after MAZ was silenced by shRNA(P < 0.05).Conclusions:(1)The expression of MAZ was up regulated in HCC and the positive expression of MAZ correlated with AFP, tumor diameter and metastasis and poor prognosis, sugessted the expression of MAZ maybe a important indicator of prognosis.(2) The expression of MAZ had a positive correlation with the expression of ZEB1 or ZEB2 in HCC, which predicted that MAZ might be involved in EMT progress of EMTthrough ZEB1 and ZEB2.(3)MAZ maybe could promote the proliferation, migration and invasion of HCC cells and inhibit cell apoptosis.