Characterization of hepatocellular carcinoma cell lines based on cell adhesion molecules

Many studies which focus on the molecules and mechanisms related to the characteristics of the cancer have been performed. In particular, cell adhesion molecules (CAMs) are known to play a central role in the adhesion of cancer cells to vascular endothelial cells. In this study, the expression of CAMs in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cell lines was analyzed and correlated with the characteristics of various HCC cell lines. Eight human HCC cell lines were used in this study. We analyzed the expression of ICAM-1, E-selectin and the integrin subunits of HCC cell lines by western blot analysis and ELISA kit. We estimated the expression of integrin-α5 using western blot analysis and RT-PCR to compare the expression at the gene level with the protein level. In addition, we determined the expression of TGF-β1, as one of the markers for the cellular activity compared to the levels of expression with the expression of integrin-α3 and -α5. ICAM-1 was highly expressed in all of the cell lines except SNU398 and Hep3B, which exhibit a more aggressive nature among the studied HCC cell lines. E-selectin and integrin subunits varied in all HCC cell lines. In particular, integrin-β2 was highly expressed on all HCC cell lines. In conclusion, the levels of expression of the CAMs may not affect cellular activity, morphology or tumorigenicity. However, most HCC cell lines show various expressions of CAMs, suggesting that HCC cell lines expressing the major CAMs remain candidates for molecular targeted therapy, which may need to be patient-tailored for therapy according to the molecular profile.