Biomedical Research ; trends ; Humans ; Liver Neoplasms

Antiviral Agents ; therapeutic use ; Carcinoma, Hepatocellular ; drug therapy ; virology ; Hepacivirus ; Hepatitis B virus ; Humans ; Liver Neoplasms ; drug therapy ; virology

Collective migration is the essential movement style in embryonic development.Recent stu-dies have found that collective migration is one of the main movement styles in invasion and metastasis of tumor cells.Tumor cells can invade into the stroma and microvascular in group,and the collective migration shows the unique characters when compared to the single cell movement.The potential mechanisms are closely correlated to the cell-cell connection and interaction between tumor cells and microenvironment.With the gradual improve-ment of the observation models,the mechanisms about the physical or chemical guidance,the related signaling pathways,and the epigenetic regulation in collective migration will be elucidated.

The 5'-flanking region of the human ?-fetoprotein(AFP) gene contains transcriptional regulatory sequences(TRSs) which up-regulate AFP gene expression with cell-specific enhancer activity in hepatoma cells. A couple of primers(Primerl: 5'-TGCAAGCTTATGATTCCCAAATATC-3'; Primer 2: 5'-GTCGAATTCGTGGCCTGGA TAAAGCTGAGT-3') were designed for synthesis and purification according to the known sequences of 5'-flanking region. AFPTRSs of 416 base pairs were amplified from human chromosome DNA by PCR, The identification of the AFPTRSs was confirmed to be consistent with reported sequences. The AFPTRSs can be applied to regulating the specific expression of cytokines in hepatoma cells.

In this study, the RT-PCR method was employed to detect the expression of AFP in mRNA level in tissue samples form 52 patients suffered from hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) . The results revealed that the positive rate of AFPmRNA was 76.9% in the HCC tumor tissues and 69.4% in the paratumortissues from the HCC patients with severe cirrhosis . Meanwhile, in HCC patients without cirrhosis, the positive rate reached 50% in tumor tissues, but no AFPmRNA expression was found in related paratumor tissues. The study suggested that the AFP protein was specially expressed by hepatoma cells and mutating hepatocytes. The relationships between AFPmRNA and tumoor size, capsule status and tumor metastasis were also demonstrated.

Objective To study severe or rare complications following radiofrequency ablation (RFA) for liver cancer. Methods Clinical records of severe or rare complications following RFA in 272 cases of liver cancer from January 2002 to December 2004 were retrospectively studied. Results A total of 301 RFA procedures were performed in the 272 cases. The incidence of severe or rare complications was 3.32% (10/301), and the death rate was 0.66% (2/301). Complications included 1 case of intraperitoneal hemorrhage, 2 cases of infection (1 case of peritonitis with sepsis and 1 case of liver Abscess superimposed upon bilioma), 3 cases of upper gastrointestinal bleeding (including 1 case of hemobilia), 1 case of hepatic arteriovenous fistula, 1 case of hemo-pneumothorax, 1 case of esophagopleural fistula and 1 case of needle-tract implantation of tumor. Conclusions In order of frequency,severe complications following RFA are upper gastrointestinal bleeding,infection and intraperitoneal hemorrhage.

Objective To assess the role of helical CT in the long-term follow-up of patients with malignant hepatic tumors treated with RFA. Methods CT findings of patients with liver malignant tumors (29 hepatocellular carcinomas and 7 metastases) were reviewed retrospectively, who underwent percutaneous ultrasound-guided radiofrequency ablation (RFA). CT images consisted of nonenhanced and dual-phase contrast-enhanced helical CT scan, the effect of ablation therapy and tumor recurrence were detected. Results The major patterns of tumor residual or local recurrence were the lesions with thick rim or nodular peripheral enhancement in arterial phase or the lesions with gross enlargement on follow-up CT images. The complete necrosis lesions in 28 cases (77.8%) were seen on the initial postablation CT scans after a single session RFA. On the subsequent follow-up CT examination, the local intra-hepatic tumor recurrences were seen in 2 cases (5.6%) as well as the remote intra-hepatic tumor recurrences were seen in 4 cases (11.1%).Conclusion For certain patients with hepatic malignant tumors, RFA is an effective therapeutic method, and dual-phase contrast enhanced helical CT scans play a important role in long-term assessment and follow-up of patients.

To clone the full length cDNA of the tumor rejection gene MAGE-1 from hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC) tissues. This MAGE-1 gene and the tumor rejection antigen encoded by it may be useful in subsequent studies aiming at exploring new strategies for the immunotherapy for HCC. Methods: The full length MAGE-1 cDNA was amplified by RT-PCR method using a pair of primers designed according to the encoding sequence of MAGE-1 gene. The PCR products were then digested by restriction endonucleases and inserted into the plasmid PUC19. After primary selection of the recombinants by endonuclease digestion, the sequences of the inserted gene fragments were confirmed by DNA sequence analysis. Results; Using the same pair of primers, we obtained three clones of different MAGE genes, which were a full length MAGE-1 gene, a 750 bp fragment of MAGE-3 gene and a gene highly homologous to MAGE-6 and MAGE-12 but not identical to any reported MAGE genes. Conclusion: These data suggested that some MAGE genes are expressed in heptocellular carcinoma probably including some unknown genes, which might introduce potential new targets for immune attacks.

Objective:The protein of missing in metastasis (MIM), a novel discovered actin-binding scaffold protein, is involved in actin cytoskeleton rearrangements, signal transduction and transcriptional activation, and has close association with tumor growth, invasion, and metastasis. Recently, much focus has been placed on the role of MIM performed in tumor progression. In recent years, more and more attention is focused on its action mechanism in various kinds of tumors, which has a wide foreground of investigation. In this paper, we make a comprehensive review of the association of MIM with cancer development, in order to provide the theoretical basis and new strategies for application of MIM proteins in cancer diagnosis and treatment.