Preliminary Research On The Expression Of Satb1 In Human Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Background: SATB1 is a cell-type specific nuclear protein that has been recognized as a'genome organizer'which tethers multiple genomic loci and recruits chromatin-remodeling enzymes to regulate chromatin structure and gene expression. SATB1 was recently reported to be involved in regulating breast tumors growth and metastasis and would be a new mechanism of tumor progression. In this study, the level of SATB1 expression was assessed in HCC tissues, and then we explored the association between the expression of SATB1 and tumorigenesis and progression of HCC.Methods: Hepatocellular carcinoma tissues and corresponding adjacent non-malignant tissues were collected immediately during hepatic resection. The expressions of SATB1 were detected by real-time PCR and western blotting in hepatocellular carcinoma. The location of SATB1 protein was presented by immunofluorescence staining.Results: Compared with according adjacent non-malignant tissue group, SATB1 mRNA expression in HCC tissue group was 2.52 times higher significantly (P<0.05). However, there was no relationship between SATB1 mRNA expression and several clinicopathologic features in 20 HCC cases (P>0.05). In addition, we succeed in extracting total proteins from 14 cases, and detected the SATB1 protein levels from 9 HCC cases, whose pathologic types were all poorly-differentiated hepatocellular carcinomas, were significantly higher in HCC tissues compared with according adjacent non-malignant tissues (P<0.05), and there were no significantly differences in 5 HCC cases whose pathologic types were all well-moderrately differentiated hepatocellular carcinomas (P>0.05). However, the SATB1 protein levels in poorly-differentiated hepatocellular carcinomas were higher significantly than the well-moderrately differentiated hepatocellular carcinomas (P<0.05). By immunofluorescence staining we could observe that SATB1 protein was located in hepatic cell nucleus.Conclusion: It is revealed that SATB1 may be involved in the development and progression of HCC, and also lay the foundation for exploring the role of SATB1 expression in the pathogenesis and pathophysiology of HCC.