Homer2 and Homer3 Act as Novel Biomarkers in Diagnosis of hepatitis B virus-induced Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Ping Luo; Chunzi Liang; Wei Jing; Man Zhu; Hu Zhou; Hongyan Chai; Paul F Worley; Jiancheng Tu

doi:10.7150/jca.52118

Homer2 and Homer3 Act as Novel Biomarkers in Diagnosis of hepatitis B virus-induced Hepatocellular Carcinoma

J Cancer. 2021 Apr 19;12(12):3439-3447. doi: 10.7150/jca.52118. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Ping Luo^{1

2}, Chunzi Liang², Wei Jing³, Man Zhu⁴, Hu Zhou⁵, Hongyan Chai², Paul F Worley⁶, Jiancheng Tu²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Hematology, Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, China.
² Department & Program of Clinical Laboratory Medicine, Center for Gene Diagnosis, Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan 430071, China.
³ Department of Clinical Laboratory, Key Laboratory of Laboratory Medicine of Henan, the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450000, China.
⁴ Department of Medical Laboratory, The Central Hospital of Wuhan, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430014, P.R. China.
⁵ Department of Transfusion, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology.
⁶ Department of Neuroscience, School of Medicine, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 20205, USA.

Abstract

Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common causes of cancer-related mortality worldwide. Early detection of HCC can significantly improve patients' outcomes. An increasing number of studies have validated that Homer is dysregulated in cancers and may serve as diagnostic markers. In the present study, we investigated the expression profile and diagnostic significance of Homer2 and Homer3 in hepatitis B virus-induced HCC (HBV-HCC). Methods: Quantitative real-time PCR (QRT-PCR), western blot analysis and immunohistochemistry analysis. Results: Homer2 and Homer3 were downregulated in HCC. The expression of Homer2 was associated with tumor differentiation grade (P= 0.012) and total protein (TP) level (P= 0.032). Homer3 was related to tumor size (P= 0.010), tumor nodes (P= 0.026) and γ-glutamyl transferase (GGT) level (P= 0.001). The receiver operating characteristic curve analyses indicated that the combination of Homer2, Homer3 and AFP possessed a high accuracy (AUC=0.900) to diagnose HCC cases from healthy controls. Conclusion: Our data indicated that Homer2 and Homer3 were downregulated in HCC and might be potential diagnostic marker for HCC.

Keywords: Diagnosis.; HCC; Homer2; Homer3; Tumorigenesis.