Abstract
The development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is an important complication of viral infection induced by hepatitis virus C, and our major research theme is to identify a new growth factor related to the progression of HCC. HDGF (hepatoma-derived growth factor) is a novel growth factor that belongs to a new gene family. HDGF was initially purified from the conditioned medium of a hepatoma cell line. HDGF promotes cellular proliferation as a DNA binding nuclear factor and a secreted protein acting via a receptor-mediated pathway. HDGF is a unique multi-functional protein that can function as a growth factor, angiogenic factor and anti-apoptotic factor and it participates in the development and progression of various malignant diseases. The expression level of HDGF may be an independent prognostic factor for predicting the disease-free and overall survival in patients with various malignancies, including HCC. Furthermore, the overexpression of HDGF promotes the proliferation of HCC cells, while a reduction in the HDGF expression inhibits the proliferation of HCC cells. This article provides an overview of the characteristics of HDGF and describes the potential role of HDGF as a growth-promoting factor for HCC.
Highlights
The development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a major complication of viral infection induced by hepatitis virus C [1,2]
Since the hepatoma-derived cell line Huh-7 autonomously proliferates under serum-free conditions in vitro, we hypothesized the presence of an unknown growth factor in the conditioned medium and succeeded in purifying a new molecule, “hepatoma-derived growth factor (HDGF)” [8,9]
HDGF stimulates the proliferation of hepatoma cells in vitro [10,11], and the HDGF expression is significantly higher in human HCC tissues than in adjacent non-cancerous liver tissues [12]
Summary
The development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a major complication of viral infection induced by hepatitis virus C [1,2]. HDGF stimulates the proliferation of hepatoma cells in vitro [10,11], and the HDGF expression is significantly higher in human HCC tissues than in adjacent non-cancerous liver tissues [12]. HDGF expression is related to several unfavorable cancer characteristics, including rapid growth, significant invasiveness and metastasis, and it is associated with poor prognoses of various malignant diseases [13,14,15,16,17,18,19]. We initially identified HDGF as a growth-stimulating factor; HDGF has been reported to be an angiogenic factor and probable anti-apoptotic factor. This novel molecule may participate in the development and progression of many types of cancer through multiple mechanisms.
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