Abstract
Chemokines and their receptors have recently been shown to play major roles in cancer metastasis. Chemokine receptor 6 (CCR6) and its ligand, CCL20, were highly expressed in a variety of human cancers. In our present study, we aimed to clarify whether CCR6/CCL20 was correlated with the migration of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). RT-PCR and Western blot results showed that CCR6 was overexpressed in different invasive potential HCC cell lines (p < 0.05), while the expression of CCL20 had no obvious difference (p > 0.05). CCR6 was suppressed by siRNA in HCCLM6, and then the biological behaviors of HCCLM6 cells were observed. The results showed that the CCR6/CCL20 biological axis increased the capacity of proliferation and adhesion, as well as the chemotactic migration and the level of cytokines related to degraded extracellular matrix. In conclusion, these findings indicate that CCR6 indeed participates in regulating the migration and invasion of HCC, and it might become a prognostic factor of HCC.
Highlights
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) ranks among the most common malignancies worldwide with a poor prognosis
We examined the relationship of Chemokine receptor 6 (CCR6)/CCL20 and the biological behavior of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), which would help us understand the mechanism of the invasion and metastasis of HCC
The expression of CCR6/CCL20 mRNA and protein in liver/liver cancer cell lines was detected by real-time PCR and Western blot, respectively
Summary
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) ranks among the most common malignancies worldwide with a poor prognosis. The actin polymerization and pseudopodia formation within the cells may participate in this process, and the combination of chemokines and their receptors plays a very important role in determining the metastatic destination of tumor cells. Support for this theory comes from the overexpression of chemokine receptors CCR7 and CXCR4 in breast cancer cells, and the expression levels of their ligands (SDF-1 and 6) are much higher in the usual metastatic destination (lymph nodes, lung and liver) than the rare one (small intestine, skin, brain tissue and skeletal muscle) [5]. As for providing a new research direction in anti-tumor therapy, organ selective transfer has become a hot spot in the field of tumor metastasis
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