Wu C G, Hakvoort T B, Lamers W H, Chamuleau R A
Department of Experimental Internal Medicine, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Biochim Biophys Acta. 1996 Apr 12;1315(3):169-75. doi: 10.1016/0925-4439(95)00117-4.
Identification of gene products exclusively or abundantly expressed in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and in normal liver may yield novel tumor markers. We have isolated 36 up- and down-regulated cDNAs from diethylnitrosamine-induced rat hepatocellular carcinoma and normal liver tissue by using the subtraction-enhanced display technique. Nucleotide sequence analysis revealed that the majority of 20 subtraction-enriched cDNA fragments were well-characterized oncogenes and tumor-associated genes, like c-myc, alpha-prothymosin, p21, glutathione-S transferase (G-ST) and alpha 1-acid glycoprotein (AGP). As demonstrated by Northern blot detection, all of them were preferentially expressed either in HCC or in normal liver (2- to 7-fold). As paradigm, G-ST and AGP were shown to be exclusively overexpressed in tumor nodules by in situ hybridization. In addition, 14 of the remaining 16 novel genes were analysed on Northern blot, 10 of which were differentially expressed in HCC.
