The Effects of the CCR6/CCL20 Biological Axis on the Invasion and Metastasis of Hepatocellular Carcinoma

International Journal of Molecular Sciences

Dongshu Du³  Yeliu Liu¹  Haixin Qian⁴  Bo Zhang²  Xiaojun Tang¹  Ti Zhang¹ 

[1] Department of General Surgery, Huai’an First People’s Hospital, Nanjing Medical University, 6 Beijing Road West, Huai’an 223300, Jiangsu, China; E-Mails:;Department of General Surgery, Zhangjiagang Hospital Affiliated to Soochow University, Zhangjiagang 215600, Jiangsu, China; E-Mail:;College of Life Science, Shanghai University, 99 Shangda Road, Shanghai 200444, China; E-Mail:;Department of General Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, No. 188, Shizi Street, Suzhou 215006, Jiangsu, China; E-Mail:

关键词: CCR6;    CCL20;    hepatocellular carcinoma;    metastasis;   

DOI  :  10.3390/ijms15046441

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Chemokines and their receptors have recently been shown to play major roles in cancer metastasis. Chemokine receptor 6 (CCR6) and its ligand, CCL20, were highly expressed in a variety of human cancers. In our present study, we aimed to clarify whether CCR6/CCL20 was correlated with the migration of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). RT-PCR and Western blot results showed that CCR6 was overexpressed in different invasive potential HCC cell lines (p < 0.05), while the expression of CCL20 had no obvious difference (p > 0.05). CCR6 was suppressed by siRNA in HCCLM6, and then the biological behaviors of HCCLM6 cells were observed. The results showed that the CCR6/CCL20 biological axis increased the capacity of proliferation and adhesion, as well as the chemotactic migration and the level of cytokines related to degraded extracellular matrix. In conclusion, these findings indicate that CCR6 indeed participates in regulating the migration and invasion of HCC, and it might become a prognostic factor of HCC.

【 授权许可】

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