Clinicopathological significance of missing in metastasis B expression in hepatocellular carcinoma

Missing in metastasis (MIM) proteins are important regulators in controlling cell growth and development. There has been accumulating evidence suggesting a role of MIM-B in carcinogenesis, yet its role in the development of hepatocellular carcinoma has not been examined thus far. In this study, we investigated the clinicopathological significance of MIM-B in tumor and its matched adjacent nontumor tissue obtained from 40 patients with hepatocellular carcinoma. Increased MIM-B messenger RNA and protein expression, as detected by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction and Western blot, respectively, was found in hepatocellular carcinoma clinical samples; and its expression was significantly associated with early pathologic tumor-node-metastasis stage group (P = .007), presence of tumor encapsulation (P = .034), and absence of venous infiltration (P = .038). Higher levels of MIM-B expression were found to be associated with early stage disease. Elevated MIM-B expression may influence the development of hepatocellular carcinoma and may possibly be a powerful indicator for the disease at an early stage.