Expression Of KDM7Enzymes In Human Hepatocellular Carcinoma And Its Clinical Significance

Background:Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignancies and has a poor prognosis. Recurrence and metastasis are leading causes of treatment failure in HCC patients. However, mechanisms that affect the development, progress and prognosis of HCC are still unknown. Nowadays, studies showed that epigenetic deregulation plays an important role in the development of HCC. Two members of newly discovered demethylases KDM7, KIAA1718(KDM7A) and PHF8(KDM7B), may be involved in carcinogenesis.Objective:To investigate the expression of KDM7in human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and discuss its clinicopathologic significance.Methods:Expression of KDM7in60hepatocellular carcinoma samples as well as their matched paraneoplastic tissues and15normal liver tissues were evaluated by immunohistochemistry. Statistical methods were used to analyze the relationships between the expression of KDM7and clinicopathologic features of patients.Results:The expression of KDM7A in HCC samples and the normal liver tissues, its expression in HCC samples, para-carcinoma tissues and normal liver tissues are18.3%,15%,13.3%respectively(P>0.05), while PHF8genes are highly expressed in HCC specimens. The PHF8-positive expression rate in HCC samples is55.0%and it is significantly higher than that in paraneoplastic tissues and normal liver tissues (16.7%,6.7%, respectively)(P<0.05).The expression of PHF8is closely related to tumor size, tumor nodular number, the degrees of pathological differentiation of tumor and the TNM-staging of tumors(P<0.05for all). And the5-year disease-free survival and overall survival in the PHF8-positive group was significantly lower than that in the negative group (P<0.05). Conclusions:The expression of KDM7A in. HCC samples and the normal liver tissues, while PHF8were overexpressed in HCC samples, and its expression was closely associated with HCC clinicopathologic features and the prognosis of patients, which provides a significant reference value in indicating the prognosis for HCC patients.