Reduced expression of chemerin is associated with a poor prognosis and a lowed infiltration of both dendritic cells and natural killer cells in human hepatocellular carcinoma.

BACKGROUND: Chemerin has been suggested to chemoattract dendritic cells (DC) and natural killer (NK) cells which have the antitumor role. However, no study has been performed to determine the expression of chemerin in tumor tissues. The aim of our study is to investigate chemerin expression in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tumor tissues and to correlate chemerin expression with clinicopathological parameters and prognosis. METHODS: In a random series of 124 HCC patients, the expression of chemerin protein in tumor tissues and matched non-tumor tissues were detected by immunohistochemistry. The infiltration of DC and NK cells was examined by CD11c and CD56 immunostaining to observe whether it correlated with the level of chemerin protein expression. The correlation of chemerin expression levels with clinicopathologic variables and prognosis was also analyzed. RESULTS: The expression of chemerin protein was significantly decreased in HCC of 72 patients compared with paracarcinomatous liver tissue. The level of chemerin expression was significantly correlated with tumor size (p = 0.016), histological grade (p = 0.027) and the infiltration of DC and NK cells (p = 0.027 and p = 0.035, respectively). Survival analysis indicated that HCC patients with lower chemerin expression had poorer survival than those with higher expression (p < 0.001). Multivariable Cox regression analysis revealed that the chemerin expression level was an independent factor for prognosis (HR 3.034, 95% CI 1.017 to 9.053; p = 0.047). CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that chemerin may play an important role in the development and progression of HCC via the recruitment of DC and NK cells.

A modified restriction display PCR method in sample-labelling of DNA microarray.

The restriction display PCR is a useful technique for studying the diversity of gene expression. This method involves ligating the digested genes with adapters and amplifying the gene fragments by PCR using universal and selective primers. In this study, we improved this restriction display PCR method by using Cy3-UP, a fluorescently labelled universal primer, in place of Cy3-dCTP in sample-labelling for DNA microarray. The results show that this new method increases significantly the sensitivity of the assay, and will have a wide application in the DNA microarray field.

[The study on significance of detecting the hepatitis B virus large proteins in public health physical examination].

OBJECTIVE: It was to explore the application of the hepatitis B virus large proteins (HBV-LP) in public health physical examination through clinical testing of HBV-LP in Catering practitioners, students and soldiers of New requisition etc. METHODS: 709 samples of HBV infection people were collected in public health physical examination and all collected samples were detected. ELISA was used to detect HBV serum markers (HBV-M) and HBV-LP. Real-time PCR was applied to detect quantity of HBV DNA. RESULTS: (1) The detectable results of HBV-LP and HBV DNA were no statistical significance in 709 samples. (2) The detectable results of HBV-LP and HBV DNA were also no statistical significance in different models of HBV infection patients. The values of chi2 and P were respectively 2.67, 0.60, 0.00 and 0.10, 0.44, 1.00. S/A of HBV-LP and the copies of HBV-DNA had a positive relationship (r = 0.959, P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: HBV-LP could reflect the level of hepatitis B virus replication and be used to judge the level of hepatitis B virus replication in people of public health physical examination. HBV-LP may be worth using widely in physical examination.