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Background: The 5-year survival rate of patients with hepatocellular cancer (HCC) was very low because of invasion and metastasis in the early stage. Biomarkers might help predict early occurrence of invasion and metastasis. Accumulating evidence has shown that deleted in liver cancer-1 (DLC1) may be considered as a metastasis suppressor gene in numerous solid and hematological cancers. However, its prognostic role and mechanisms that regulate and coordinate these activities remain poorly understood. Methods: With the method of immunohistochemistry, the expression of DLC-1 as well as Rho A, ROCK2, moesin had been characterized in 80 HCC tissues and adjacent noncancerous tissues. The correlation between their expression and their relationships with clinicopathological characteristics of HCC were also investigated. In addition, the prognostic value of DLC1 expression within the tumor tissues was assessed by Cox regression and Kaplan-Meier analysis. Results : DLC1 expression was significantly lower in HCC tissues than in adjacent noncancerous tissues, and DLC-1 expression was found to be negatively correlated with tumor differentiation, TNM stage and lymph node metastasis. Furthermore, DLC-1 expression was found to inversely correlate with Rho A, ROCK2 and moesin which were all highly expressed in HCC tissues. Kaplan-Meier analysis showed that significantly longer 5-year survival rate was seen in HCC patients with higher DLC1 expression, compared to those with lower expression of DLC1. Multivariate Cox proportional hazard analyses revealed that DLC1 was an independent factor affecting the overall survival probability. Conclusion: DLC1 could be served as a tumor suppressor gene in the progression especially in the invasion and metastasis of HCC. DLC1 perhaps played its role by regulating the expression of Rho A, ROCK2 and moesin. Evaluation of the expression of DLC-1 might be a good prognostic marker for patients with HCC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background:Adoptive therapy with tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) induces durable complete responses (CR) in ∼20% of patients with metastatic melanoma. The recruitment of T cells through CXCR3/CCR5 chemokine ligands is critical for immune-mediated rejection. We postulated that polymorphisms and/or expression of CXCR3/CCR5 in TILs and the expression of their ligands in tumour influence the migration of TILs to tumours and tumour regression.Methods:Tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes from 142 metastatic melanoma patients enrolled in adoptive therapy trials were genotyped for CXCR3 rs2280964 and CCR5-Δ32 deletion, which encodes a protein not expressed on the cell surface. Expression of CXCR3/CCR5 in TILs and CXCR3/CCR5 and ligand genes in 113 available parental tumours was also assessed. Tumour-infiltrating lymphocyte data were validated by flow cytometry (N=50).Results:The full gene expression/polymorphism model, which includes CXCR3 and CCR5 expression data, CCR5-Δ32 polymorphism data and their interaction, was significantly associated with both CR and overall response (OR; P=0.0009, and P=0.007, respectively). More in detail, the predicted underexpression of both CXCR3 and CCR5 according to gene expression and polymorphism data (protein prediction model, PPM) was associated with response to therapy (odds ratio=6.16 and 2.32, for CR and OR, respectively). Flow cytometric analysis confirmed the PPM. Coordinate upregulation of CXCL9, CXCL10, CXCL11, and CCL5 in pretreatment tumour biopsies was associated with OR.Conclusion:Coordinate overexpression of CXCL9, CXCL10, CXCL11, and CCL5 in pretreatment tumours was associated with responsiveness to treatment. Conversely, CCR5-Δ32 polymorphism and CXCR3/CCR5 underexpression influence downregulation of the corresponding receptors in TILs and were associated with likelihood and degree of response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background:Current imaging modalities are inadequate in preoperatively predicting regional lymph node metastasis (RLNM) status in rectal cancer (RC). Here, we designed support vector machine (SVM) model to address this issue by integrating epithelial-mesenchymal-transition (EMT)-related biomarkers along with clinicopathological variables.Methods:Using tissue microarrays and immunohistochemistry, the EMT-related biomarkers expression was measured in 193 RC patients. Of which, 74 patients were assigned to the training set to select the robust variables for designing SVM model. The SVM model predictive value was validated in the testing set (119 patients).Results:In training set, eight variables, including six EMT-related biomarkers and two clinicopathological variables, were selected to devise SVM model. In testing set, we identified 63 patients with high risk to RLNM and 56 patients with low risk. The sensitivity, specificity and overall accuracy of SVM in predicting RLNM were 68.3%, 81.1% and 72.3%, respectively. Importantly, multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that SVM model was indeed an independent predictor of RLNM status (odds ratio, 11.536; 95% confidence interval, 4.113-32.361; P<0.0001).Conclusion:Our SVM-based model displayed moderately strong predictive power in defining the RLNM status in RC patients, providing an important approach to select RLNM high-risk subgroup for neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a fatal disease with great public health impact worldwide. Heme oxygenase (HO)-1 has recently been reported as an important player in tumor angiogenesis and metastasis. However, the role of HO-1 in liver cancer metastasis is unclear. In this study, we explored genetic differences and downstream signal transduction pathways of HO-1 in liver cancer cell lines. HO-1 wild-type and mutant cell lines were generated from human liver cancer cell line HepG2. The overexpression of wild-type HO-1 decreased the migration of HepG2 cells. In contrast, the overexpression of mutant HO-1G143H increased the migration of the cancer cells. Interleukin (IL)-6 is one of the major downstream molecules that mediated this process because IL-6 expression and migration are suppressed by HO-1 and increased when HO-1 is knocked down by shRNA. In addition, we demonstrated carbon monoxide (CO) and p38MAPK are the cofactors in this signal pathway. In vivo animal model demonstrated HO-1 inhibited the tumor growth. In conclusion, in vitro and in vivo data show HO-1 inhibits the human HCC cells migration and tumor growth by suppressing the expression of IL-6. The heme degradation product CO is a cofactor in this process and inhibits p38MAPK phosphorylation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accumulating evidence indicates that a sub-population of cancer cells with stem-like properties, termed tumor-initiating cells (T-ICs), exist in many different kinds of malignancies, which have a pivotal role in tumorigenesis, tumor progression, metastasis and post-treatment relapse. However, how the stem-like properties of T-ICs are regulated remains obscure. Our previous study showed that reduction of let-7 microRNA (miRNA) in breast tumor-initiating cells (BT-ICs) contributes to the maintenance of their self-renewal capacity and undifferentiated status. In this study we show the effect of mir-30 reduction on the stem-like features of BT-ICs. Similar to let-7, mir-30 is reduced in BT-ICs, and the protein level of Ubc9 (ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme 9) and ITGB3 (integrin β3), the target genes of mir-30, is markedly upregulated. Enforced constitutive expression of mir-30 in BT-ICs inhibits their self-renewal capacity by reducing Ubc9, and induces apoptosis through silencing ITGB3. On the contrary, blocking the miRNA with a specific antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) in differentiated breast cancer cells revived their self-renewal capacity. Furthermore, ectopic expression of mir-30 in BT-IC xenografts reduces tumorigenesis and lung metastasis in nonobese diabetic/severe combined immunodeficient mice, whereas blocking mir-30 expression enhances tumorigenesis and metastasis. Together, our data suggest mir-30 as one of the important miRNAs in regulating the stem-like features of T-ICs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extra-pancreatic metastasis is a difficult problem for surgical intervention in pancreatic cancer. CXC chemokine receptor 4 (CXCR4) was considered to have an important role in this process. We hypothesized it may contribute to the pancreatic cancer progression through influencing canonical Wnt pathway. The purpose of this study was to examine the functional role of CXCR4 in the progression of pancreatic cancers and explore the possible mechanism. To this end, the relation between CXCR4 and clinical characteristics was analysed. shRNA against CXCR4 was applied to disrupt the SDF-1/CXCR4 signal transduction pathways in pancreatic cancer cell lines. Our results showed that overall survival in the case of patients positive for CXCR4 expression was significantly lower than that in the case of patients negative for CXCR4 expression. Notably, in vitro studies we observed that the abrogation of CXCR4 could obviously influence the pancreatic cancer cell phenotype including cell proliferation, colony formation, cell invasion and also inhibit the TOPflash activity. In addition, Wnt target genes and mesenchymal markers such as Vimentin and Slug were also inhibited in CXCR4 knockdown cells. Collectively, these data reported here demonstrate CXCR4 could modulate the canonical Wnt pathway and perhaps be a promising therapeutic target for pancreatic cancer progression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) has been defined as a novel oncogene. Our previous results have shown that MIF may contribute to the progression of neuroblastoma by (a) inducing N-Myc expression and (b) upregulating the expression of angiogenic factors. The aim of this study was to test whether tumor growth could be inhibited by reduction of endogenous MIF expression in neuroblastoma and clarify the molecular mechanisms underlying MIF reduction on the control of neuroblastoma growth. We established human neuroblastoma cell lines stably expressing antisense MIF (AS-MIF) cDNA. These stable transfectants were characterized by cell proliferation, gene expression profile, tumorigenicity and metastasis in vitro and in vivo. Decreased MIF expression was observed after transfection with AS-MIF in neuroblastoma cells and downregulation of MIF expression significantly correlated with decreased expression of N-Myc, Ras, c-Met and TrkB at protein level. Affymetrix microarray analysis revealed that expression of IL-8 and c-met was inhibited and neuroblastoma-favorable genes such as EPHB6 and BLU were upregulated in MIF reduced cells. Neuroblastoma cell growth exhibited a nearly 80% reduction in AS-MIF transfectants in vitro. Furthermore, mice in which tumors formed after subcutaneous injection of AS-MIF transfectants showed a 90% reduction in tumor growth compared to control. Metastasis in mice was also suppressed dramatically. Our data demonstrate that targeting MIF expression is a promising therapeutic strategy in human neuroblastoma therapy, and also identifies the MIF target genes for further study.Oncogene (2006) 25, 3501–3508. doi:10.1038/sj.onc.1209395; published online 30 January 2006 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background We carried out this meta-analysis to demonstrate efficacies of neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT) and adjuvant chemotherapy (AC) for nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) patients based on randomized, controlled trials (RCTs). Patients and methods We comprehensively searched electronic databases and manuscripts for RCTs and extracted data from eligible studies for meta-analysis. Overall survival (OS) with hazard ratios (HRs), locoregional recurrence rate (LRR) and distant metastasis rate (DMR) with relative risks (RRs) were concerned using random and/or fixed-effects models. Subgroup and sensitivity analyses were also carried out. Results Six trials in NACT group (n = 1418) and five in AC group (n = 1187) were eligible. HR of death for NACT was 0.82 [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.69–0.98, P = 0.03], corresponding to an absolute survival gain of 5.13% after 3 years. Significant reduction of DMR (P = 0.0002; RR 0.69, 95% CI 0.56–0.84) was also found from NACT. But no decrease in LRR (P = 0.49; RR 0.90, 95% CI 0.66–1.22) was observed. Patients receiving additional AC had lower LRR (P = 0.03; RR 0.71, 95% CI 0.53–0.96). But no benefit of OS and DMR were seen in AC. Conclusions NACT can effectively enhance OS and reduce DMR, not LRR in NPC. And AC only helps to better control locoregional recurrence of NPC. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]