School of Health Sciences, Flinders University of South Australia, Flinders Drive, Bedford Park 5042, Australia.
World J Gastroenterol. 2018 Jan 7;24(1):1-4. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v24.i1.1.
A protective role of the sex steroid hormone estrogen in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) was suggested a few decades ago according to clinical data showing higher HCC morbidity and mortality among males. Several recent studies further confirmed the anti-cancer effects of estrogen in the liver. However, it remains to be identified how to exploit estrogen signalling within clinical settings for HCC treatment. There are several unresolved issues related to the estrogen pathway in liver cells. The main problems include the absence of a clear understanding of which estrogen receptor (ER) isoform is predominantly expressed in normal and malignant liver cells, the ER isoform expression difference between males and females, and which ER isoform should be targeted when designing HCC therapy. Some of those questions were recently addressed by Iyer and co-authors. The current editorial review critically analyses the study by Iyer et al (, 2017) that investigated the expression of ER subtypes in liver samples collected from patients with a healthy liver, hepatitis C virus cirrhosis, and HCC. ER presence was evaluated in association with gender, intracellular localization, inflammation marker NF-κB, and proliferation-related effector cyclin D1. The study limitations and advantages are discussed in light of recent advances in the HCC and estrogen signalling areas.
几十年来，根据临床数据显示男性肝癌（HCC）发病率和死亡率更高，表明性激素雌激素在 HCC 中有保护作用。最近的几项研究进一步证实了雌激素在肝脏中的抗癌作用。然而，如何在临床环境中利用雌激素信号来治疗 HCC 仍有待确定。肝细胞中雌激素途径存在几个未解决的问题。主要问题包括尚不清楚哪种雌激素受体（ER）亚型在正常和恶性肝细胞中占优势表达，男女之间 ER 亚型表达的差异，以及在设计 HCC 治疗时应该针对哪种 ER 亚型。最近，Iyer 及其同事解决了其中的一些问题。本期社论批判性地分析了 Iyer 等人的研究（2017 年），该研究调查了从健康肝脏、丙型肝炎病毒肝硬化和 HCC 患者中采集的肝组织样本中 ER 亚型的表达。评估了 ER 的存在与性别、细胞内定位、炎症标志物 NF-κB 和增殖相关效应子 cyclin D1 的关系。根据 HCC 和雌激素信号领域的最新进展，讨论了该研究的局限性和优势。
