Pivotal molecules of MHC I pathway in human primary hepatocellular carcinoma

Identification and validation of a prognostic model of necroptosis-related lncRNAs in hepatocellular carcinoma

Background: The study focused on establishing a prognostic survival model with six necroptosis-related lncRNAs to predict overall survival (OS) in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

Methods: The data of gene expression and clinical information of HCC patients were obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). Cox regression with LASSO was used for constructing a necroptosis-related lncRNA survival model, which we further validated with qRT-PCR in vitro. The relative bioinformatics analysis and consensus cluster analysis were performed based on six differentially expressed lncRNAs.

Results: The survival prognostic model was constructed by using data from TCGA. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves showed a good survival prediction by this model. GSEA showed that several signaling pathways were related to HCC progression. Immune-related functional analysis showed that aDCs, macrophages, Th2 cells, and Tregs have stronger correlation with the high-risk group. The consensus cluster analysis further validated the 6-lncRNA prognostic model.

Conclusion: A novel 6-lncRNA (AL606489.1, NRAV, LINC02870, DUXAP8, “ZFPM2-AS1,” and AL031985.3) prognostic model had an accurately predictive power in HCC prognosis, which might be worthy of clinical application.

Hepatocellular carcinoma: Prospects for natural killer cell immunotherapy

Liver disease is a growing cause of death in the United Kingdom and the incidence of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is rising (http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/). The combination of an immunosuppressive environment within the liver and suboptimal host anti-tumour immune responses may account for the poor survival outcome of HCC. Understanding how tumours evade immune recognition coupled with new insights into the unique immunological environment within the liver will be critical to developing liver-specific immunotherapies.

IMA901: a multi-peptide cancer vaccine for treatment of renal cell cancer

Despite a major improvement in the treatment of advanced kidney cancer by the recent introduction of targeted agents such as multi-kinase inhibitors, long-term benefits are still limited and a significant unmet medical need remains for this disease. Cancer immunotherapy has shown its potential by the induction of long-lasting responses in a small subset of patients, however, the unspecific immune interventions with (high dose) cytokines used so far are associated with significant side effects. Specific cancer immunotherapy may circumvent these problems by attacking tumor cells while sparing normal tissue with the use of multi-peptide vaccination being one of the most promising strategies. We here summarize the clinical and translational data from phase I and II trials investigating IMA901. Significant associations of clinical benefit with detectable T cell responses against the IMA901 peptides and encouraging survival data in treated patients has prompted the start of a randomized, controlled phase III trial in 1st line advanced RCC with survival results expected toward the end of 2015. Potential combination strategies with the recently discovered so-called checkpoint inhibitors are also discussed.

IRF-1 and p65 mediate upregulation of constitutive HLA-A antigen expression by hepatocellular carcinoma cells

Malignant transformation of hepatocytes is frequently associated with upregulation of HLA-A expression. Currently there is no information available regarding the mechanisms underlying this phenotypic change. We investigated HLA-A expression in 165 paraffin embedded tissues and 21 fresh tissues from liver cancer patients. Utilizing truncated HLA-A promoter-reporter constructs and gel-shift assay we had identified the regulatory elements and transcription factors required for HLA-A upregulation. 54% of the paraffin embedded tissues showed increased HLA-A expression in their cancerous part. 43% of the fresh liver cancer tissues had increased HLA-A complex expression with the HLA-A heavy chain gene demonstrating the highest level of upregulation (62%). Enhanced HLA-A expression in the liver cell lines QGY7701 and BEL7402 was found to be mediated by binding of interferon regulatory factor 1 (IRF-1) to interferon stimulated response element, and of nuclear transcription factor p65 binding to enhancer A element in the HLA-A promoter of these cell lines. The in vivo relevance of these findings was indicated by the association of the enhanced expression of IRF-1 and accumulation of nuclear p65 with HLA-A upregulation in 8 of the 21 liver cancer lesions investigated. Our results indicated that HLA-A upregulation in liver cancer was mediated by both increased nuclear aggregation of transcription factor p65 and upregulation of transcription factor IRF-1.

Use of a Rainbow Trout Oligonucleotide Microarray to Determine Transcriptional Patterns in Aflatoxin B1-Induced Hepatocellular Carcinoma Compared to Adjacent Liver

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignant tumors worldwide, and its occurrence is associated with a number of environmental factors including ingestion of the dietary contaminant aflatoxin B(1) (AFB(1)). Research over the last 40 years has revealed rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) to be an excellent research model for study of AFB(1)-induced hepatocarcinogenesis; however, little is known about changes at the molecular level in trout tumors. We have developed a rainbow trout oligonucleotide array containing 1672 elements representing over 1400 genes of known or probable relevance to toxicology, comparative immunology, carcinogenesis, endocrinology, and stress physiology. In this study, we applied microarray technology to examine gene expression of AFB(1)-induced HCC in the rainbow trout tumor model. Carcinogenesis was initiated in trout embryos with 50 ppb AFB(1), and after 13 months control livers, tumors, and tumor-adjacent liver tissues were isolated from juvenile fish. Global gene expression was determined in histologically confirmed HCCs compared to noncancerous adjacent tissue and sham-initiated control liver. We observed distinct gene regulation patterns in HCC compared to noncancerous tissue including upregulation of genes important for cell cycle control, transcription, cytoskeletal formation, and the acute phase response and downregulation of genes involved in drug metabolism, lipid metabolism, and retinol metabolism. Interestingly, the expression profiles observed in trout HCC are similar to the transcriptional signatures found in human and rodent HCC, further supporting the validity of the model. Overall, these findings contribute to a better understanding of the mechanism of AFB(1)-induced hepatocarcinogenesis in trout and identify conserved genes important for carcinogenesis in species separated evolutionarily by more than 400 million years.