Key laboratory of Carcinogenesis and Translational Research (Ministry of Education), Department of Hepatic, Biliary & Pancreatic Surgery Unit I, Peking University Cancer Hospital & Institute, Beijing, China.
Surgery. 2013 Apr;153(4):518-25. doi: 10.1016/j.surg.2012.08.067. Epub 2012 Dec 4.
Neural Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome protein (N-WASP) mediates migration and invasion in cancer cells, but its expression and clinicopathologic and prognostic importance in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remain unknown. The present study was designed to address these issues.
N-WASP expression was first analyzed by Western blotting in 19 paired HCC and paratumoral liver (PTL) tissues. We further evaluated N-WASP expression immunohistochemically in samples from 119 patients with HCC. The clinicopathologic and prognostic importance of N-WASP expression were also investigated.
Western blotting showed that N-WASP expression was up-regulated in 15 of 19 HCC tissues (79%), compared with PTL ones. The N-WASP-positive rate in immunohistochemical staining also was greater in HCC (63/119, 53%) than that in PTL tissues (8/119, 6%). The up-regulated N-WASP expression in HCC tissues was correlated with absence of capsule formation and predicted less overall and disease-free survival. Multivariate analysis demonstrated that N-WASP was an independent prognostic factor for overall survival and was marginally important for disease-free survival.
These data establish that N-WASP is highly expressed in HCC and its strong prognostic importance. Therefore, the gene/protein might serve as a potential therapeutic target for HCC.
神经 Wiskott-Aldrich 综合征蛋白（N-WASP）介导癌细胞的迁移和侵袭，但它在肝细胞癌（HCC）中的表达及其与临床病理和预后的关系尚不清楚。本研究旨在解决这些问题。
首先通过 Western blot 在 19 对 HCC 和癌旁肝（PTL）组织中分析 N-WASP 表达。我们进一步在 119 例 HCC 患者的样本中免疫组织化学评估 N-WASP 表达。还研究了 N-WASP 表达的临床病理和预后意义。
Western blot 显示，与 PTL 组织相比，N-WASP 在 19 例 HCC 组织中的 15 例（79%）中上调。免疫组织化学染色中 N-WASP 阳性率在 HCC（63/119，53%）中也高于 PTL 组织（8/119，6%）。HCC 组织中上调的 N-WASP 表达与无包膜形成相关，并预测总体生存率和无病生存率降低。多变量分析表明，N-WASP 是总生存率的独立预后因素，对无病生存率具有边缘重要性。
这些数据表明 N-WASP 在 HCC 中高度表达，其预后意义重大。因此，该基因/蛋白可能成为 HCC 的潜在治疗靶点。
