The Expression Of RhoA, RhoC, MMP-2and MMP-9and The Study Of Their Clinical Significance In Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Objective:In this study, using immunohistochemistry (SP method) to detecte the expression levels of RhoA, RhoC and MMP-2and MMP-9in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and analysising their relationship and clinical significance. To investigate the roles of RhoA(Ras homologous A, RhoA)、 RhoC(Ras homologous C, RhoC)、matrix metalloproteinase-2(MMP-2) and matrix metalloproteinase-9(MMP-9) proteins in the occurrence, development, invasion and metastasis of HCC.Methods:The tissues of HCC are obtained from46Patients who had already diagnosed and underwent surgical operations.46cases are HCC tissues,46cases are paraneoplastic tissues,20cases are normal liver tissues. In this study we use Immunohistochemical method to detect the expression of the four protein in all the tissues in order to analysis the relationship between the expressions of the four protein and the pathological character of HCC.Results:(1)The expressions of RhoA, RhoC and MMP-2and MMP-9in HCC tissues, paraneoplastic tissues and normal liver tissues are all positive.The expressions are mainly in cytoplasms. In this experiment, positive rates of RhoA, RhoC and MMP-2, MMP-9were84.8%(39/46),86.9%(40/46),91.3%(42/46),91.3%(42/46) in the46cases of HCC tissues.There was statistically difference in the expression level of RhoA, RhoC and MMP-2and MMP-9in the HCC group and tissues surrounding HCC(0.54±0.28vs0.35±0.27,0.54±0.25vs0.26±0.25,0.59±0.25vs0.34±0.30,0.63±0.22vs0.45±0.30,P<0.05).(2) The expressions of RhoA, RhoC and MMP-2, MMP-9protein are not associated with gender, age, tumor size, and virus infection but with AFP-positive, the degree of tissue differentiation, vein invasion, tumor stage,(TNM) and lymph node metastasis.(3) The expressions correlation analysis about RhoA,RhoC,MMP-2and MMP-9in hepatocellular carcinoma with Spearam rank correlation was made.The rank correlation coefficientrs are0.684,0.638,0.745,0.621, P<0.01, which showed that the expressions of RhoA, RhoC,MMP-2and MMP-9are of positive correlation.(P<0.01) in HCC foci.Conclusion:(1)RhoA, RhoC, MMP-2, MMP-9may play a role in the early stage of HCC.(2) The expressions of RhoA, RhoC and MMP-2, MMP-9in HCC are significantly higher than the paraneoplastic tissues group and normal liver tissues group, which means that they are key factors in the occurrence and development of HCC.(3) The expressions of RhoA, RhoC, MMP-2and MMP-9are positively related to the malignant degree of tumor. The expressions of RhoA, RhoC, MMP-2and MMP-9were correlated with each other.These results suggest that they were cooperating in the occurrence and development of HCC,thus,these proteins can act as new indicators for the detection of HCC and the degree of malignancy and invasion and metastasis.