High Expression of Heterogeneous Nuclear Ribonucleoprotein A1 Facilitates Hepatocellular Carcinoma Growth

Ziyi Cao,1,* Li Guan,1,* Runzhi Yu,1 Fan Yang,2 Jie Chen1 1Department of Gastroenterology, Huadong Hospital Affiliated to Fudan University, Shanghai, 200040, People’s Republic of China; 2Shanghai Key Laboratory of Clinical Geriatric Medicine, Shanghai, 200040, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Jie Chen; Fan Yang, Email laugh_chenjie@fudan.edu.cn; fdyangfan@fudan.edu.cnPurpose: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) represents one of the most common tumors in the world. Our study aims to explore new markers and therapeutic targets for HCC. Heterogeneous Nuclear ribonucleoprotein A1 (hnRNPA1) has recently been found to be involved in the progression of several types of cancer, but its role in HCC remains uncovered.Methods: We performed bioinformatic analysis to preliminarily show the relationship between hnRNPA1 and liver cancer. Then the correlation of the hnRNPA1 gene expression with clinicopathological characteristics of HCC patients was verified by human liver cancer tissue microarrays. The functional role of this gene was evaluated by in vivo and vitro experiments.Results: Results showed that the expression of hnRNPA1 was upregulated in HCC tissues and was associated with pathological stage of HCC patients. Knockdown of hnRNPA1 gene markedly inhibited tumor growth in vivo, and reversed the effects on proliferation, migration and invasion and promoted apoptosis in vitro. Furthermore, down-regulation of hnRNPA1 gene expression can inhibit the activity of the MEK/ERK pathway.Conclusion: In our work, we combined bioinformatic analysis with in vivo and in vitro experiments to initially elucidate the function of hnRNPA1 in liver cancer, which may help to explore biomarkers and therapeutic targets for HCC patients.Keywords: hepatocellular carcinoma, WGCNA, hnRNPA1, proliferation, MEK/ERK