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Generation of Subcutaneous and Intrahepatic Human Hepatocellular Carcinoma Xenografts in Immunodeficient Mice
Published on: September 25, 2013
B7-H6 expression in human hepatocellular carcinoma and its clinical significance [corrected]
Lujun Chen1,2,3, Jun Feng1,2,3, Bin Xu1,2,3
11Department of Tumor Biological Treatment and Research Center for Cancer Immunotherapy Technology of Jiangsu Province, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, Changzhou, 213003 Jiangsu China.
Background:
Recent studies have suggested that B7-H6, a new member of the B7 family of ligands, not only is a crucial regulator of NK cell-mediated immune responses but also has important clinical implications due to its abnormal expression in many human cancers. We have previously reported that higher B7-H6 expression levels in ovarian cancer tissues are positively correlated with tumor metastasis and cancer progression. To date, the expression of B7-H6 in human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and the clinical significance of B7-H6 expression still remain elusive.
Methods:
In the present study, the expression level of B7-H6 was examined in both HCC tissues and HCC cell lines (HepG2 and SMMC-7721). And the clinical significance of B7-H6 was analyzed as well.
Results:
Our results revealed that B7-H6 was expressed abnormally in HCC tissues, which was greatly related to tumor size. The TCGA data also showed that the B7-H6 mRNA expression level was significantly negatively correlated with the survival of HCC patients. Next, to investigate the functions of B7-H6 in HCC, we successfully constructed B7-H6 knockdown expression human HCC cell lines using the RNA interference technology. Our studies showed that reduced expression of B7-H6 in HepG2 and SMMC-7721 cells significantly attenuated cell proliferation as well as cell migration and invasion. Besides, depletion of B7-H6 greatly induced cell cycle arrest at G1 phase. And also B7-H6 knockdown in HCC cell lines dramatically decreased the C-myc, C-fos and Cyclin-D1 expression.
Conclusions:
Our present findings suggested that B7-H6 played an important role in oncogenesis of HCC on cellular level, and B7-H6 could be employed to develop immunotherapeutic approaches targeting this malignancy.
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