The biochemical changes among patients with hepatocellular carcinoma were various and common in which reduction of albumin synthesis (61%), reversion of A/G ratio (58%), bilirubinemia (21%), increases of SGOT (91%) and SGPT (82%) and these increases were direct proportional with progress of disease
Carcinoma, Hepatocellular ; Metabolism

OBJECTIVE: To discuss the meanings of Oct-4's expression in thyroid adenoma, thyroid papillary carcinoma, thyroid follicular carcinoma, and medullary thyroid carcinoma. METHOD: We examined the expression of Oct-4 in 15 thyroid adenoma, 30 thyroid papillary carcinomas, 2 thyroid follicular carcinomas, and 3 medullary thyroid carcinomas using immunofluorescence. RESULT: Oct-4 expression was observed in all the thyroid-related diseases mentioned above. In thyroid papillary carcinomas, the expression of Oct-4 were higher than that in thyroid adenoma, and had no obvious relationship with the patients age, sex, the size and location of tumor and tumor metastasis. CONCLUSION The formation of the thyroid carcinomas may be concerned with the stem cells in thyroid. There are more stem cells in medullary thyroid carcinomas and follicular carcinomas.
Adenocarcinoma, Follicular ; metabolism ; pathology ; Carcinoma, Neuroendocrine ; Carcinoma, Papillary ; metabolism ; pathology ; Humans ; Octamer Transcription Factor-3 ; metabolism ; Thyroid Neoplasms ; metabolism ; pathology

Impaired regulation of apoptosis is known to be associated with the development of various cancers, and Fas/Fas-ligand (FasL) is known to play an important role in apoptosis. CD40 is a cell surface receptor, which when ligated modulates apoptosis in some cell types. The expressions of CD40 and FasL were examined in 10 normal skins, 7 Bowen's disease skins, 10 squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs) and 12 basal cell carcinomas (BCCs) immunohistochemically. In the normal epidermis, CD40 was more highly expressed in the keratinocytes of the squamous cell and granular layers than in those of the basal layer, and FasL expression was observed in the cell membrane of keratinocytes at the basal and squamous cell layers. CD40 expression was significantly higher in SCCs than in normal or Bowen's disease skin, while FasL expression was significantly higher in Bowen's disease than in SCCs. BCCs expressed the lowest levels of CD40 and FasL. These results suggest that altered CD40 and FasL expression may be related with the progression of SCC, and the marked reduced expression of CD40 and FasL may explain the biologic behavior of BCCs.
Antigens, CD40/*metabolism ; Bowen's Disease/*metabolism ; Carcinoma, Basal Cell/*metabolism ; Carcinoma, Squamous Cell/*metabolism ; Human ; Membrane Glycoproteins/*metabolism ; Reference Values ; Skin/metabolism ; Skin Neoplasms/*metabolism

Esophageal cancer (EC) is one of the common malignant tumors in China. Esophagectomy based on multi-disciplinary principle improves the quality of life and survival of esophageal cancer patients, but a lot of patients will suffer recurrence or metastasis after surgery. TNM stage is the most important factor which affects the prognosis of patients with esophageal cancer. Besides, there are other prognostic factors, such as abnormal expression of the proteins. Exploration of these proteins may provide new clues to improve prognosis in esophageal squamous cell cancer (ESCC). We reviewed the literatures related to abnormal protein expression in ESCC, and tried to elucidate the prognostic value and potential clinical application of these proteins in ESCC.
Biomarkers, Tumor ; metabolism ; Carcinoma, Squamous Cell ; metabolism ; Esophageal Neoplasms ; metabolism ; Humans ; Prognosis ; Proteins ; metabolism

Carcinoma, Hepatocellular ; metabolism ; pathology ; Hepatocytes ; metabolism ; pathology ; Humans ; Liver Neoplasms ; metabolism ; pathology ; NF-kappa B ; metabolism

OBJECTIVETo explore the pathogenesis and significance of neuroendocrine breast carcinoma by detecting chromogranin A (CgA) in human mammary tissues.

METHODEighty-nine cases of human mammary tissues were collected to detect CgA expression using immunohistochemistry.

RESULTNo CgA expression was detected in normal or hyperplastic tissues, but its expression was found in mammary carcinoma tissues at the rate of 16.7%. A significant difference in CgA expression was found between cancer tissues and non-cancer tissues, but not between the cancer tissues with different pathological grades.

CONCLUSIONThe pathogenesis of mammary neuroendocrine carcinoma may involve the micro-environmental factors that affect the differentiation of stem cells to give rise to immature cells, cell differentiation in other lineages or transdifferentiation. CgA may serve as an immunological parameter for this type of breast cancer in routine screening test.

Breast ; metabolism ; Breast Neoplasms ; metabolism ; Carcinoma, Neuroendocrine ; etiology ; metabolism ; Chromogranin A ; metabolism ; Female ; Humans

OBJECTIVE: To explore the expression and clinical significance of chemokine CXCL10 and CXCR3 in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). METHODS: The expression and prognostic of CXCL10 and CXCR3 in HCC tumor tissues and non-tumor tissues were analyzed in two different publicly available databases the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Liver Cancer Institute (LCI). In addition, quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) was used to detect the mRNA expression of CXCL10 and CXCR3 in 45 HCC clinical samples with HBV infection background. Pearson correlation and Spearman rank correlation were used to determine the correlation between the expression level of CXCL10 and CXCR3 in tumor and non-tumor tissues. RESULTS: In TCGA database, the expression of CXCL10 in HCC tumor tissues was significantly higher than that in non-tumor tissues (nonpaired samples: 3.379±2.081 vs. 2.213±2.274, P<0.001; paired samples: 3.159±2.267 vs. 2.213±2.274, P=0.018). Similarly in LCI datebase (7.625±1.683 vs. 7.287±1.328, P=0.009). And higher CXCL10 expression was significantly associated with a better prognosis in the patients with HCC both in TCGA and LCI database (P=0.107, P=0.002). In TCGA database, the expression of CXCR3 in HCC tumor tissues was significantly higher than that in non-tumor tissues (nonpaired samples: -0.906±1.697 vs. -1.978±1.629, P<0.001; paired samples: -1.329±1.732 vs. -1.978±1.629, P=0.037), while lower in LCI database (3.989±0.339 vs. 4.074±0.309, P=0.003). In both databases, higher CXCR3 expression was significantly associated with a better prognosis in the HCC patients (P=0.004, P=0.014). Furthermore, in TCGA database, the expression level of CXCL10 and CXCR3 was positively correlated both in HCC tumor tissues and matched non-tumor tissues (r=0.584, P<0.001; r=0.776, P<0.001). The qPCR assay showed that the expression of CXCL10 in HBV-related HCC tumor tissues was significantly higher than those in normal liver tissues [0.479(0.223, 1.094) vs. 0.131(0.106, 0.159), P=0.010], and the expression in HBV-related non-tumor tissues was also significantly higher than those in normal liver tissues [0.484(0.241, 0.846) vs. 0.131(0.106, 0.159), P<0.001]. The same was true as CXCR3 [0.011(0.006, 0.019) vs. 0.002(0.001, 0.004), P=0.004; 0.016(0.011, 0.021) vs. 0.002(0.001, 0.004), P<0.001]. However there was no significant difference of CXCL10 and CXCR3 between tumor tissues and matched non-tumor tissues (P=1.000, P=0.374). CONCLUSION Expression of CXCL10 was up-regulated in HCC tissues, expression of CXCR3 was down-regulated in HBV-related HCC tissues, and the higher expression of both genes was correlated with better overall survival in HCC patients.
Adult ; Carcinoma, Hepatocellular/metabolism* ; Chemokine CXCL10/metabolism* ; Humans ; Liver Neoplasms/metabolism* ; Prognosis ; Receptors, CXCR3/metabolism*

The correlation between the expression of COX-2 and p53 protein in basal cell carcinoma (BCC) of eyelid and apoptosis was investigated. Specimens of BCC were collected from 40 cases (aged 28-68 y) at the Department of Pathology, Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, and Department of Pathology, Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University during from 1999 to 2006. Five specimens of paracancerous tissues served as control group. Immunohistochemical staining was performed to detect the expression of COX-2 and p53 in the tissues. The average absorbance (A) and the average positive area rate of COX-2 and p53 protein were measured by image analysis. The positive area rate of COX-2 and p53 protein was analyzed by linear correlation analysis. It was found that COX-2 and p53 proteins were highly expressed in BCC of eyelid, and weakly expressed in paracancerous tissues. Image analysis revealed that the expression of COX-2 and p53 proteins in BCC of eyelid was significantly higher than that in paracancerous tissues (P<0.01). Spearman rank correlation analysis demonstrated a positive correlation between the expression of COX-2 and p53 (r=0.113, P=0.421). It was concluded that COX-2 can increase the expression of p53 protein, therefore suppressing apoptosis.
Apoptosis ; Carcinoma, Basal Cell/*metabolism ; Cyclooxygenase 2/*metabolism ; Eyelid Neoplasms/*metabolism ; Tumor Suppressor Protein p53/*metabolism

Breast Neoplasms ; pathology ; Carcinoma in Situ ; metabolism ; pathology ; Carcinoma, Intraductal, Noninfiltrating ; metabolism ; pathology ; Carcinoma, Papillary ; metabolism ; pathology ; Collagen Type IV ; metabolism ; Female ; Humans ; Neoplasm Invasiveness ; pathology

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the expression and significance of miRNA-324-3p and its target gene WNT2B in tissue specimens of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) specimens. METHOD: qRT-PCR was used to detect the expression of miRNA-324-3p and WNT2B mRNA, and Western blot was applied to assay the expression of WNT2B protein in 39 cases of NPC specimens and 21 cases of non-carcinoma epithelium. The relationship between their expression levels and clinicopathological characteristics and their correlation with clinical pathological parameters was analyzed. RESULT: The expression of miRNA-324-3p was significantly down-regulated decreased but WNT2B mRNA/protein increased obviously in NPC specimens (P < 0.01). A negative correlation between miRNA-324-3p and WNT2B was spotted (P < 0.05). The expression levels of these markers were closely correlated with T stage, clinic stage and cervical lymph node metastasis (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION The loss of miRNA-324-3p and ectopic WNT2B might co-induce the initiation and progression of NPC.
Carcinoma ; Glycoproteins ; genetics ; metabolism ; Humans ; Lymphatic Metastasis ; MicroRNAs ; metabolism ; Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma ; Nasopharyngeal Neoplasms ; metabolism ; Neoplasm Proteins ; metabolism ; RNA, Messenger ; metabolism ; Wnt Proteins ; genetics ; metabolism