Expression And Clinical Significance Of BANCR In Hepatocellular Carcinoma

BackgroundHepatocellular carcinoma(HCC) is one of the most common malignant tumor of gastrointestinal system in the world, ranked fourth, its mortality rate followed by lung cancer which is ranked second. According to a recent statistics, the half of the new cases and death cases of HCC every year occurred in China. The main risk factors of HCC currently were known as hepatitis virus, alcohol, aflatoxin B1,genetic factors, drinking water pollution, smoking, lack of trace elements(such as selenium), and the process of multiple factors and steps may be account for the final cause of liver cancer, more than gene mutations. In recent years, although the traditional treatment such as surgery and transcatheter arterial chemoembolization can improve the survival rate of patients with liver cancer, but patients still have a high rate of recurrence and metastasis, the recurrence is still the death of cancer patients after surgical resection of HCC. The present study showed that molecular basis of hepatocellular carcinoma is caused by mutations in oncogenes or anti oncogene, but the occurrence and metastasis of the specific molecular mechanism is still not very clear. In the genome, the gene encoding the protein is about 2%, while most of the transcripts encoding are non RNA. Long non coding RNAencoding( LncRNA) refers to the length of 200 nt, is not encoding protein, originally people thought that LncRNA does not have any biological function, which is the "dark matter" of genome transcription. However, recent datas show that in many solid tumors, LncRNA can promote or inhibit the occurrence and development of malignant tumor by chromosome modification, and provide important clues for exploring the pathogenesis of hepatocellular carcinoma. LncRNA HULC was first detected in hepatocellular carcinoma(highly up-regulated in liver cancer), the mechanism of promoting the malignant proliferation of hepatocellular carcinoma cells is through by suppressor gene P18. BANCR(BRAF activated long non-coding RNA) is a newly discovered, it has been proved that the expression of in melanoma,colorectal cancer, gastric cancer tumors, and promote the proliferation and invasion of tumor cells, it has malignant potential. But researchers on BANCR home and abroad in hepatocellular carcinoma is rarely reported.In addition, epithelial mesenchymal transition(Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transitions, EMT) plays a crucial role in the process of invasion and metastasis of hepatocellular carcinoma. Many studies show that LncRNA can regulate epithelial mesenchymal transition, so as to promote invasion and migration of tumor cells.Real time quantitative PCR technique was used to verify whether there is difference between HCC tissues and adjacent non-tumor tissues of the expression BANCR and immunohistochemical technique was used to analyze its relationship with EMT associated markers protein, and the effect and mechanism of BANCR in hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC) for further discussion.Objective1.To detect the expression of BANCR in HCC tissues and adjacent non-tumor tissues by real-time quantitative PCR;2.To analyze the relationship between BANCR and EMT related marker protein,and explore its role in the occurrence and development of hepatocellular carcinoma.Methods1. Samples from 108 HCCs as well as 108 adjacent non-tumor tissues were examined for BANCR by real-time PCR and analyzed its correlation with the clinical parameters.2. Immunofluorescence was performed to detect the expression levels of E-cadherin and Vimentin and analyze BANCR relationship with E-cadherin and Vimentin.Results1.Real-time PCR results showed that BANCR’s expression in HCC tissues was noticeablely increased compared with adjacent non-tumor tissues(P<0.05).Correlation of BANCR expression with clinicopathological features was significant only for the presence of lymph node metastasis(P=0.001), TNM stage(P=0.000), but not with age, gender, tumor size, AFP, Edmondson-Steiner grading, tumor number and Vascular invasion(P>0.05).2.Immunofluorescence assays showed that Vimentin was mainly expressed in the intracellular of the HCC tissues and there was less E-cadherin expression. In contrast, immunofluorescence also confirmed that E-cadherin was highly expressed in the cytomembrane of the adjacent non-tumor tissues and there was no Vimentin expression. Moreover, an inverse correlation between BANCR and E-cadherin and a positive correlation between BANCR and Vimentin were revealed in HCC tissues.Conclusions1.BANCR was highly expressed in HCC tissues and was associated with TNM stage and lymph node metastasis.2.BANCR’s expression is correlated with E-cadherin and Vimentin expression in HCC.