Project description:Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), the fourth leading cause of cancer mortality, develops almost exclusively in patients with chronic liver disease (CLD) and advanced fibrosis. Here we interrogated functions of hepatic stellate cells (HSC), the main source of liver fibroblasts, during hepatocarcinogenPesis. Genetic depletion, activation or inhibition established HSC as tumour-promoting in mouse models of HCC. HSC were enriched in the preneoplastic environment, where they closely interacted with hepatocytes and modulated hepatocarcinogenesis by regulating hepatocyte proliferation and death. Analysis of mouse and human HSC subpopulations and their associated mediators by single cell RNA-sequencing in conjunction with genetic ablation revealed dual functions of HSC in hepatocarcinogenesis. Hepatocyte growth factor, enriched in quiescent and cytokine-producing HSC (cyHSC), protected from hepatocyte death and HCC development. In contrast, type I collagen, enriched in activated myofibroblastic HSC (myHSC), promoted proliferation and tumour development via increased stiffness and TAZ activation in pretumoural hepatocytes and via activation of discoidin domain receptor 1 in established tumours. An increasing HSC dysbalance between cyHSC and myHSC during liver disease progression was associated with elevated HCC risk in patients. In summary, the dynamic shift of HSC subpopulations and their mediators during CLD is associated with a switch from HCC protection to HCC promotion.
Project description:In this study we used a high-throughput method for assaying methylation of CpG sites simultaneously in a single sample for identifying differences in methylation observed in tissues ranging from normal liver to pre-neoplastic (cirrhosis) and neoplastic (HCC) states. Since there are important clinical and prognostic differences among HCC patients due to etiology, this study was designed to focus on HCC due to HCV-infection, a more common etiology of HCC among Western countries cross-sectional: 20 cirrhosis, 20 HCC, and 16 normal patients, 87 arrays
Project description:We report the application of RNA sequencing technology for high-throughput profiling in HCC tissues. In the present study, to explore novel biomarkers of HCC, we firstly explored the expression profiles of mRNAs and miRNAs in three pairs of HCC patients (tumor tissues and non-tumorous tissues) by high-throughput RNA sequencing. A total of 1024 mRNAs were found to be significantly dysregulated (636 up-regulated and 388 down-regulated), 50 miRNAs were found to be significantly dysregulated (27 up-regulated and 23 down-regulated) in the HCC tissues compared with the non-tumorous tissues.Then validae the differentially expressed miRNAs by qRT-PCR in HCC tissues and serum. This study provides a framework for the application of miRNAs to be ideal biomarkers for HCC.
Project description:In this study we used a high-throughput method for assaying methylation of CpG sites simultaneously in a single sample for identifying differences in methylation observed in tissues ranging from normal liver to pre-neoplastic (cirrhosis) and neoplastic (HCC) states. Since there are important clinical and prognostic differences among HCC patients due to etiology, this study was designed to focus on HCC due to HCV-infection, a more common etiology of HCC among Western countries
Project description:There are significant differences in the expression of genes that regulate metabolic pathways in HCC as compared to Cirrhosis or non-tumor liver tissues. These charcteristic pathways can be exploited for metabolic imaging biomarkers of HCC. We used microarrays to perform genome-wide association study expression in human Grade III hepatocellular carcinoma and surrounding tissues.
Project description:Abstract The liver is the largest solid organ and a primary metabolic hub. In recent years, intact cell nuclei were used to perform single-nuclei RNA-seq (snRNA-seq) for tissues difficult to dissociate and for flash-frozen archived tissue samples to discover unknown and rare cell sub-populations. In this study, we performed snRNA-seq of a liver sample to identify sub-populations of cells based on nuclear transcriptomics. In 4,282 single nuclei we detected on average 1,377 active genes and we identified seven major cell types. We integrated data from 94,286 distal interactions (p<0.05) for 7,682 promoters from a targeted chromosome conformation capture technique (HiCap) and mass spectrometry (MS) proteomics for the same liver sample. We observed a reasonable correlation between proteomics and in silico bulk snRNA-seq (r=0.47) using tissue-independent gene-specific protein abundancy estimation factors. We specifically looked at genes of medical importance. The DPYD gene is involved in the pharmacogenetics of fluoropyrimidines toxicity and some of its variants are analyzed for clinical purposes. We identified a new putative polymorphic regulatory element, which may contribute to variation in toxicity. Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most common type of primary liver cancer and we investigated all known risk genes. We identified a complex regulatory landscape for the SLC2A2 gene with 16 candidate enhancers. Three of them harbor somatic motif breaking and other mutations in HCC in the Pan Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes dataset and are candidates to contribute to malignancy. Our results highlight the potential of a multi-omics approach in the study of human diseases.
Project description:To determine the circRNA expression profile in HCC and matched non-tumor tissues, we used circRNA microArray analysis form Arraystar to examine the expression of circRNAs in HCC and matched non-tumor tissues.