Objective To investigate the expression of CK2α' in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tissues and its prognosis value. Methods Tissue microarray was made from tumor and adjacent normal tissues of 83 patients with HCC. Immunohistochemical was used to stain the microarray for semi-quantitative analysis, and the expression of CK2α' in HCC tissues and adjacent normal tissues was compared. The associations between CK2α' expression and clinicopathologic features of HCC patients were analyzed with χ² text. The prognostic value of CK2α' was estimated using Kaplan-Meier approach. Results The average positive expression rate of CK2α' was 47.8% in HCC and 65.4% in adjacent normal tissues. The positive expression rate of CK2α' in HCC tissues was lower than that in adjacent normal tissues (P < 0.01). The expression level of CK2α' in the cancer tissues of 74.7% cases was significantly lower than that in the adjacent tissues. HCC patients with low CK2α' expression had higher risk of recurrence and shorter overall survival time (P < 0.05). The expression of CK2α' was significantly correlated with CK19 (P < 0.05). Conclusion CK2α' is down-regulated in HCC tissues and correlated with the prognosis of patients. It could be a potential prognostic marker for HCC.

Objective To investigate the expression level of calcitonin gene-related peptide-receptor component protein (CRCP) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tissue and adjacent tissue and its association with the clinicopathological features and prognosis of patients. Methods HCC and adjacent tissue samples were collected from 79 HCC patients who underwent surgical resection in Eastern Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital, Navy Medical University, from June 2003 to September 2009. Tissue microarray was prepared, and immunohistochemistry was used for quantitative analysis. Related proteins were extracted and measured by Western blot, and the expression of CRCP was compared between HCC tissue and adjacent tissue. The chi-square test was used for comparison of categorical data between groups. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was performed to obtain the area under the ROC curve (AUC), and goodness of fit was evaluated. Youden index was used to determine the optimal cut-off value. and the Kaplan-Meier survival analysis was used to analyze the association of CRCP expression with the recurrence and prognosis of HCC, and the log rank test was used for comparison between the two groups. Results Among the 79 HCC patients, there were 67 male patients and 12 female patients, with an age of 10-72 years, and 20 patients had portal vein tumor thrombus. As for pathological grade, 1 had grade 4 HCC, 61 had grade 3 HCC, and 17 had grade 2 HCC; as for BCLC stage, 5 had BCLC stage 0 HCC, 55 had BCLC stage A HCC, 11 had BCLC stage B HCC, and 8 had BCLC stage C HCC. Western blot showed that the expression level of CRCP in HCC tissue was lower than that in adjacent tissue in 4 patients, and immunohistochemistry showed that the expression level of CRCP in HCC tissue was significantly lower than that in adjacent tissue in 75.9% of the patients. Low CRCP expression was associated with CK19 positivity, incomplete tumor capsule, presence of portal vein tumor thrombus, and high pathological grade ( χ 2 =6.410, 4.829, 9.319, and 9.083, all P < 0.05). Compared with the low CRCP expression group, the high CRCP expression group had a significantly longer overall survival time and a significantly lower recurrence rate ( P < 0.001 and P =0.009). Conclusion Patients with low CRCP expression in HCC tissue tend to have a poorer prognosis than those with high CRCP expression, and CRCP may participate in the development, progression, and metastasis of HCC, suggesting that this molecule can be used as a potential biomarker to predict the prognosis of HCC patients.