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. 2005 Nov 14;11(42):6701-6.
doi: 10.3748/wjg.v11.i42.6701.

Correlation and prognostic significance of beta-galactoside alpha-2,6-sialyltransferase and serum monosialylated alpha-fetoprotein in hepatocellular carcinoma

Terence C W Poon  1 , Clarissa H S Chiu, Paul B S Lai, Tony S K Mok, Benny Zee, Anthony T C Chan, Joseph J Y Sung, Philip J Johnson
Affiliations

Correlation and prognostic significance of beta-galactoside alpha-2,6-sialyltransferase and serum monosialylated alpha-fetoprotein in hepatocellular carcinoma

Terence C W Poon et al. World J Gastroenterol. .

Abstract

Aim: To investigate the correlation between tissue ST6Gal I and serum msAFP in HCC patients, and to investigate their prognostic significance.

Methods: Preoperative sera, paired tumorous and non-tumorous tissues were collected from 19 consecutive patients who had undergone surgical resection of HCC. ST6Gal I activities in the tissues were measured by an in vitro microsomal enzyme activity assay. The percentages of tumor-specific msAFP in the sera were also estimated by an isoelectric focusing-immunoblotting assay.

Results: The tumor ST6Gal I activity was negatively correlated with serum msAFP percentage (r = -0.53, P = 0.019). Both decreased tumor ST6Gal I activity and increased serum msAFP percentage were associated with poor tumor cell differentiation. Univariate analyses showed that both decreased tumor ST6Gal I activity (P = 0.028), increased serum msAFP percentage (P = 0.034) and poor tumor cell differentiation (P = 0.031) were associated with shorter overall survival. Multivariate analysis using the Cox regression model showed that the preoperative serum msAFP percentage (P = 0.022) and tumor cell differentiation status (P = 0.048) were independent prognostic indicators for patient overall survival.

Conclusion: Our results indicate that the presence of msAFP in blood circulation is associated with a decreased activity of ST6Gal I activity in HCC. Both tissue ST6Gal I and serum msAFP are potential prognostic markers for patients with operable HCC.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Electrophoresis of RT-PCR products amplified from the total RNA preparations of the tumor (T) and non-tumor liver (NT) tissues from HCC patients. For both tumor and non-tumor total RNA preparations, the RT-PCR products corresponding to ST6Gal I and β-Actin DNA showing the expected sizes (421 bp and 305 bp respectively) were obtained. Commercially available human normal liver cDNA was used as the positive control. Similar DIG-labeled RT-PCR products with the same sizes were obtained when DIG-dNTPs were used.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The frequency of poorly differentiated tumors among the 19 HCC patients with different relative tumor ST6Gal I activity or with different preoperative serum msAFP percentage. Differences between the study groups were tested by Fisher’s exact test. 1P = 0.045.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Survival curves of 19 patients with operable hepatocellular carcinoma after surgical resection according to relative tumor ST6Gal I activity (A) and preoperative serum msAFP percentage (B). Censored cases (O).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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