Characterization of circulating tumor cells and its application of the treatment selection for hepatocellular carcinoma

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24592008
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Digestive surgery
• Research Institution: Kumamoto University
• Principal Investigator: BEPPU toru 熊本大学, 医学部附属病院, 特任教授 (70301372)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): OKABE Hirohisa 熊本大学, 医学部附属病院, 診療助手 (40573621) ; ANDO Yukio 熊本大学, 大学院生命科学研究部, 教授 (20253742)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 血中癌細胞 / 上皮間葉形質転換 (EMT) / 肝細胞癌 / CD44 / Anoikis / CD45-CD44+CD90+細胞 / 血中癌幹細胞

Outline of Final Research Achievements

As the characteristics of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), CD44 is correlated with mesenchymal characteristics of HCC and is present downstream of TGF-β signals. After hepatic resection, CD44-positive HCC patients showed poor prognosis (Mima K, Beppu T, et al. Cancer Res 2012). Furthermore we demonstrated that sphere forming ability was very high in CD44 + cells compared to CD44- cells. These characteristics are regulated by Twist1 controlling the mesenchymal characteristics and we confirmed the co-localization of the expression of CD44, Vimentin, Twist1 in human HCC primary tumors (Okabe H, Beppu T, et al. Br J Cancer 2014). As compared with the CD45-CD44 + CD90 + HCC cells in the tissue, the expression of the CD44, and Vimentin in the CD45-CD44 + CD90 + HCC cells in the blood rose markedly, and expression of E-cadherin was dramatically declined. Finally it was confirmed that CD44 is useful as EMT marker for HCC (Okabe H, Beppu T, et al. Br J Cancer 2014).

Free Research Field

消化器外科学