Correlations of HACE1 expression with pathological stages, CT features and prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma patients.

PURPOSE

To explore the correlations of HECT domain and ankyrin repeat-containing E3 ubiquitin protein ligase 1 (HACE1) expression with the pathological stages, computed tomography (CT) features and prognosis of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

METHODS

The clinical data were randomly collected from 70 patients with primary HCC. The messenger RNA (mRNA) and HACE1 in the cancer and paracancer tissues were determined via real-time quantitative-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). The curve of the relationship between HACE1 expression and patients' overall survival (OS) was plotted using the Kaplan-Meier method. Finally, the CT imaging data of patients were pooled to analyze the relationships of HACE1 expression with CT signs.

RESULTS

Compared with those in the paracancer tissues, the mRNA and protein expression levels of HACE1 declined significantly in HCC tissues (p<0.05). It was found through analyzing the clinical indicators that the expression level of HACE1 was considerably correlated with the tumor diameter, tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) stages and pathological grades (p<0.05). The survival analysis revealed that the OS of patients in Low HACE1 group was shorter than that in High HACE1 group (median OS: 12.40 months vs. 15.16 months, p=0.031). Besides, as indicated by CT examination, the expression of HACE1 was not correlated with the number of tumors (p>0.05), but notably associated with the size, capsule and necrosis of tumors (p<0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

HCC tissues are significantly deficient in HACE1, and the combination of HACE1 and CT images may serve as an efficacious strategy for the clinical diagnosis and monitoring of HCC.