SREBP-1 Has a Prognostic Role and Contributes to Invasion and Metastasis in Human Hepatocellular Carcinoma

International Journal of Molecular Sciences

Chao Li¹  Wei Yang¹  Junli Zhang²  Xin Zheng²  Yingmin Yao²  Kangsheng Tu¹ 

[1] Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery, the First Affiliated Hospital of Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710061, China;

关键词: SREBP-1;    hepatocellular carcinoma;    biomarker;    prognosis;    invasion;    metastasis;   

DOI  :  10.3390/ijms15057124

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Sterol regulatory element-binding protein 1 (SREBP-1) is a well-known nuclear transcription factor involved in lipid synthesis. Recent studies have focused on its functions in tumor cell proliferation and apoptosis, but its role in cell migration and invasion, especially in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), is still unclear. In this study, we found that the expression of SREBP-1 in HCC tissues was significantly higher than those in matched tumor-adjacent tissues (p < 0.05). SREBP-1 was expressed at significantly higher levels in patients with large tumor size, high histological grade and advanced tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) stage (p < 0.05). The positive expression of SREBP-1 correlated with a worse 3-year overall and disease-free survival of HCC patients (p < 0.05). Additionally, SREBP-1 was an independent factor for predicting both 3-year overall and disease-free survival of HCC patients (p < 0.05). In vitro studies revealed that downregulation of SREBP-1 inhibited cell proliferation and induced apoptosis in both HepG2 and MHCC97L cells (p < 0.05). Furthermore, wound healing and transwell assays showed that SREBP-1 knockdown prominently inhibited cell migration and invasion in both HepG2 and MHCC97L cells (p < 0.05). These results suggest that SREBP-1 may serve as a prognostic marker in HCC and may promote tumor progression by promoting cell growth and metastasis.

【 授权许可】

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© 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland