Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: UMLS:C0019204 (hepatocellular carcinoma)
 71,386 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Autoantibodies are often detected in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), and these responses may represent recognition of tumor Ags that are associated with transformation events. The identities of these Ags, however, are less well known. Using serological analysis of recombinant cDNA expression libraries (SEREX) from four HCC patients, we identified 55 independent cDNA sequences potentially encoding HCC tumor Ags. Of these genes, 15 are novel. Two such proteins, HCA587 and HCA661, were predominantly detected in testis, but not in other normal tissues, except for a weak expression in normal pancreas. In addition to HCC, these two Ags can be found in cancers of other histological types. Therefore, they can be categorized as cancer-testis (CT) Ags. Two other Ags (HCA519 and HCA90) were highly overexpressed in HCC and also expressed in cancer cell lines of lung, prostate, and pancreas, but not in the respective normal tissues. Four other Ags were identified to be expressed in particular types of cancer cell lines (HCA520 in an ovarian cancer cell line, HCA59 and HCA67 in a colon cancer cell line, HCA58 in colon and ovarian cancer cell lines), but not in the normal tissue counterpart(s). In addition, abundant expression of complement inactivation factors was found in HCC. These results indicate a broad range expression of autoantigens in HCC patients. Our findings open an avenue for the study of autoantigens in the transformation, metastasis, and immune evasion in HCC.
 ...
PMID:Large scale identification of human hepatocellular carcinoma-associated antigens by autoantibodies. 1209 19

CHP2 (calcineurin B homologous protein 2) was initially identified as a tumor-associated antigen highly expressed in hepatocellular carcinoma. Its biological function remains largely unknown except for a potential role in transmembrane Na(+)/H(+) exchange. In the present study, we observed that ectopic expression of CHP2 promoted the proliferation of HEK293 cells, whereas knockdown of endogenous CHP2 expression in HepG2 inhibited cell proliferation. When inoculated into nude mice, CHP2 transfected HEK293 cells displayed markedly increased oncogenic potential. In analysis of the underlying molecular mechanisms, we found that like calcineurin B, CHP2 was able to bind to and stimulate the phosphatase activity of calcineurin A. In accord with this, CHP2-transfected cells showed increased nuclear presence of NFATc3 (nuclear factor of activated T cells) and enhanced NFAT activity. Finally, both accelerated cell proliferation and NFAT activation following CHP2 transfection could be suppressed by the calcineurin inhibitor cyclosporine A, suggesting an intrinsic connection between these events. Taken together, our results highlighted a potential role of CHP2 in tumorigenesis and revealed a novel function of CHP2 as an activator of the calcineurin/NFAT signaling pathway.
 ...
PMID:CHP2 activates the calcineurin/nuclear factor of activated T cells signaling pathway and enhances the oncogenic potential of HEK293 cells. 1881 28