Steroid Receptor Coactivator-3Expression In Hepatocellular Carcinoma And Its Clinicopathological Significance

BackgroundSteroid receptor coactivator-3(SRC-3) is a newly discovered oncogene in recentyears, which encoding a kind of protein is a steroid hormone receptor transcriptioncoactivator,is a nuclear hormone receptor activator of the P160family member.Studies have shown that overexpression of SRC-3might initiate or inhibit tumorthrough affecting many key signaling pathways. This experiment was designed todetect the expression of SRC-3in human hepatocellular carcinoma tissues and thepaired paratumorous tissues and explore its relationship with the clinicopathologicalcharacteristics of human hepatocellular carcinoma.ObjectiveTo investigate the expression of steroid receptor coactivator-3（SRC-3）in human hepatocellular carcinoma and its relation with the clinicopathologic characteristics ofthe carcinoma by detecting the expression of SRC-3in the tumor tissues and thepaired paratumorous tissues of hepatocellular carcinoma patients.MethodsImmunohistochemistry and reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction(RT-PCR) are used to detect the level of protein expression and mRNA tanscription ofSRC-3in hepatocellular carcinoma tissues and the paired paratumorous liver (PTL)tissues from94patients with hepatocellular carcinoma. By combining with clinicalfeatures of these patients， the relationship between SRC-3expression andclinicopathologic characteristics was studied with statistical analysis．ResultsImmunohistochemistry showed that the positive expression rate of SRC-3proteinwas higher in hepatocellular carcinoma tissues than in their paired PTL tissues(55.3%vs10.6%，P<0.05)．SRC-3mRNA transcription level in hepatocellularcarcinoma tissues was significantly higher than that in the PTL tissues(P<0.05)．Theclinicopathologic evaluation revealed that the higher protein expression and mRNAtranscription level of SRC-3in hepatocellular carcinoma tissues was correlated withHBV infection，serum α-fetoprotein levels and pathologic grade （P<0.05）．ConclusionSRC-3is overexpressed in hepatocellular carcinoma and closely correlated withthe clinicopathologic features of the carcinoma．SRC-3may act as a novel biomarkerand can be a therapeutic target in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma．...