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[HBx induction of epithelial mesenchymal transition in mouse hepatic progenitor cells]
Yongliang Lu1, Lihong Shen, Hongli Li
1College of Basic Medicine, Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China.
Objective:
To investigate the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) function of HBx in hepatic progenitor cells (HPCs).
Methods:
The plasmids of pSEB-Flag-HBX and the packaging plasmids pAmpho were co-transfected in HEK 293T cells, and the recombinant retroviruses carrying HBx gene generated from the cell line were used to infect mouse HPCs HP14.5. We screened HP14.5 cells which stably expressed HBx by blasticidin to observe the morphological changes and investigate the epithelial and mesenchymal markers by real-time PCR and Western blotting. The metastatic capacity of HPCs infected with HBx was evaluated by wound-healing assay.
Results:
HP14.5 cells with stable expression of HBx protein suffered morphological changes from polygonal to a spindle-like shape. The expressions of neural cadherin (N-cadherin), Snail and vimentin at both protein and mRNA levels significantly increased (P<0.05), but epithelial cadherin (E-cadherin) and cytokeratin-18 (CK18) decreased (P<0.05). In addition, the migratory potential was enhanced in HP14.5 cells infected with HBx.
Conclusion:
HBx can induce EMT and enhance the migratory potential of HPCs.
