RASSF1A mRNA expression in hepatocellular carcinoma and its clinical significance

Abstract

Objective To quantitatively detect the expression level of RASSF1 A in human primary hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) by real-time fluorescent quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and its relationship with the clinical pathological features of HCC.Methods Total RNA isolated from samples ( including 65 cases of HCC,adjacent normal tissues,6 human liver cancer cell lines and a human normal liver cell line) were reversely into cDNA.Real-time fluorescent quantitative RT-PCR method was used to analyze the expression level of RASSF1A gene.Results The expression of RASSF1A mRNA was 3.32-fold lower in HCC tissues than in adjacent normal tissues (△CT =4.64 ± 2.44 vs. Δ CT = 6.30 ± 1.92,P ＜ 0.01 ).Among total 65 pairs of samples,the expression of RASSF1 A mRNA in HCC tissues of 38 pairs (58.5%) was significantly lower than that in adjacent normal tissues,of which: RASSF1A showed 8-fold significantly lower expression in 17 pairs,4-fold significantly lower expression in 8 pairs and 2-fold significantly lower expression in 13 pairs.In 5 pairs of samples (7.7%),the expression of RASSF1A mRNA was higher in HCC tissues than in adjacent normal tissues,and in the remaining 22 pairs (33.8% ) there was no significant down-regulation of RUNX3.The downregulation of RAAF1A mRNA was found in 50.0% ( 3/6 ) liver tumor cell lines.Lower expression of RASSF1A mRNA showed a significant correlation to PVTT ( P ＜ 0.05 ),clinical staging ( P ＜ 0.05 ) and serum HbsAg (P ＜ 0.01 ).Conclusion The low expression of RASSF1 A mRNA may play some roles in the development of the HCC. Key words: Carcinoma,hepatocellular; RASSF1 A; Real-time fluorescence quantitative RT-PGR