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Protein tyrosine kinase 7: a hepatocellular carcinoma-related gene detected by triple-combination array
Mitsuhiro Hishida1, Yoshikuni Inokawa1, Nao Takano1
1Gastroenterological Surgery (Department of Surgery II), Graduate School of Medicine, Nagoya University, Showa-ku, Nagoya, Japan.
Background:
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the top five causes of cancer-related deaths worldwide. We developed a novel technique to identify cancer-related genes of HCC as follows: triple-combination array analysis, which combines gene expression profiles, single nucleotide polymorphism arrays, and methylation arrays.
Materials And Methods:
Triple-combination array analysis was performed on one HCC sample from a 68-y-old female patient, and one candidate cancer-related gene was selected. Subsequently, we analyzed the identified gene by quantitative real-time reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and methylation-specific PCR in nine HCC cell lines and in samples from 48 HCC patients. Additionally, we evaluated gene expression by immunohistochemistry and Western blotting.
Results:
Using this method, protein tyrosine kinase 7 (PTK7) was detected as a candidate cancer-related gene. PTK7 was revealed to be hypermethylated (methylation value 0.826, range 0-1.0) in cancer tissue, compared with that of adjacent noncancerous tissues (0.047) by methylation array. Of the 48 clinical samples, 30 HCC samples (62.5%) showed PTK7 promoter hypermethylation. Downregulation of PTK7 (expressions in tumor tissues decreased by ≥ 50% compared with the noncancerous tissues) was significantly associated with age >60 y (P = 0.030) and elevation in serum protein induced by vitamin K absence or antagonists-II (P = 0.033). Moreover, patients with downregulation were significantly inferior in overall survival (P < 0.001) than the others.
Conclusions:
Our data imply that PTK7 acts as a cancer-related gene and may be a potent prognostic marker for HCC. Triple-combination array analysis was once again found to be useful in identifying cancer-related genes.
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