HJURP Promotes Epithelial-to-Mesenchymal Transition Via Upregulating SPHK1 In Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC)is one of the most common malignancies worldwide.Most common therapeutic methods are operative therapy and chemotherapy.However,due to lack of early symptoms,HCC is usually diagnosed at advanced stage and its therapeutic options are limited,in which cases,patients generally die within a few years of diagnosis.Thus,it is essential to illuminate the molecular mechanisms underlying tumorigenesis and metastasis in HCC and find novel therapeutic targets for HCC patients.Holliday Junction Recognition Protein(HJURP)is involved in various cancers including hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC).Current studies have showed that HJURP is correlated with HCC proliferation.However,the role of HJURP in HCC Epithelial-to-Mesenchymal Transition remains unclear.In this study,we found HJURP overexpression in HCC cell lines compared with immortalized hepatic cell line.We also found that HJURP knockdown significantly reduced the migration and invasion abilities of HCC cells both in vivo and in vitro by interacting with Sphingosine kinase 1(SPHK1).Conversely,HJURP overexpression enhanced these biological abilities.Moreover,HJURP was overexpressed in tumor tissues compared with adjacent normal tissues in HCC patients and the expression of HJURP and SPHK1 was positively correlated in HCC patients.High HJURP expression is related to poor prognosis of HCC patients.In conclusion,HJURP plays an important role in tumor metastasis by upregulating SPHK1.And high HJURP expression may predict a lower disease-free survival rate and higher possibility of microvascular invasion in HCC patients.