Abstract
N-myc downstream-regulated gene 3 (NDRG3), an important member of the NDRG family, is involved in cell proliferation, differentiation, and other biological processes. The present study analyzed NDRG3 expression in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and explored the relationship between expression of NDRG3 in HCC patients and their clinicopathological characteristics. We performed quantitative real-time reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) analysis and immunohistochemistry (IHC) analyses on HCC tissues to elucidate NDRG3 expression characteristics in HCC patients. Kaplan–Meier survival curve and Cox regression analyses were used to evaluate the prognoses of 102 patients with HCC. The results revealed that compared with non-tumor tissues, HCC tissues showed significantly higher NDRG3 expression. In addition, our analyses showed that NDRG3 expression was statistically associated with tumor size (P=0.048) and pathological grade (P=0.001). Survival analysis and Kaplan–Meier curves revealed that NDRG3 expression is an independent prognostic indicator for disease-free survival (P=0.002) and overall survival (P=0.005) in HCC patients. The data indicate that NDRG3 expression may be considered as a oncogenic biomarker and a novel predictor for HCC prognosis.
Highlights
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignancies worldwide
N-myc downstream-regulated gene 3 (NDRG3) overexpression is thought to be correlated with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), prostate cancer, and laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma [16,17,18]. These findings suggest that NDRG3 has tumor-promoting effects; a recent report indicated that NDRG3 down-regulation might be involved in breast cancer occurrence and progression to an advanced stage [19]
Phylogenic analysis demonstrated that human NDRG1 and NDRG3 belong to one subfamily, whereas NDRG2 and NDRG4 belong to another [10]
Summary
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignancies worldwide. HCC ranks fifth in prevalence and second in mortality rate globally [1]. In China, new cases and mortality cases of HCC comprise more than half of the global total (>400,000 cases) [3]. In Eastern China’s Jiangsu Province, has the highest HCC prevalence worldwide [4]. HCC occurrence and development are multi-factorial, multi-stage, and continuous processes that are pertinent to factors such as hepatitis B, hepatitis C viral infection, alcohol damage, and non-alcoholic fatty liver [5,6]. And the complexity of prognosis-related factors, prognostic predictors must be identified to improve the clinical treatment of HCC
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