Expression and clinical significance of EphA7 gene in hepatocellular carcinoma

Abstract

Objective To quantitatively detect the expression level of EphA7 mRNA in primary hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and to evaluate its clinical significance. Methods Real-time fluores-cence quantitative PCR and RT-PCR were used to detect the EphA7 mRNA expression in 40 cases of HCC and their corresponding adjacent liver tissues and 10 cases of normal liver tissues. The relations between the expression of EphA7 mRNA and clinicopathological parameters were analyzed too. Results The E-phA7 mRNA was expressed in all of the 40 cases of HCC and their corresponding adjacent liver tissues and 10 cases of normal liver tissues. Real-time fluorescence quantitative PCR showed that the expression level of EphA7 mRNA in HCC (20.0711±32. 0232) was higher than that in corresponding adjacent liver tis-sues (4.5184±9.4738,P＜0.05) and normal liver tissues (4. 1764 ±4.7193,P ＜0.05). But the ex-pression level of EphA7 mRNA had no significant difference between adjacent liver tissues and normal liv-er tissues (P ＞ 0.05). The expression of EphA7 mRNA was closely correlated with histological differentia-tion, tumor thrombi in portal vein and lymph node metastasis of HCC (P ＜ 0. 05). Conclusion EphA7 mRNA expression is significantly correlated with the biological behavior of HCC. The high expression of E-phA7 may play an important role in the malignancy transformation, invasion progression and metastasis of HCC. Key words: Carcinoma; hepatocellular; EohA7; Gene expression