Numb promotes cell proliferation and correlates with poor prognosis in hepatocellular carcinoma.
BACKGROUND
Numb is an evolutionary conserved protein that plays critical roles in cell fate determination, cell adhesion, cell migration and a number of signaling pathways, but evidence for a substantial involvement of Numb in HCC has remained unclear. The present study was aimed to investigate the clinical and prognostic significance of Numb and its role in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).


METHODS
The expression of Numb was detected in 107 cases of clinical paraffin-embedded hepatocellular carcinoma tissues,5 matched paris of fresh tissues and six hepatocellular cell lines by immunohistochemistry with clinicopathological analyses,RT-PCR or Western blot. Moreover, loss of function and gain of function assays were performed to evaluate the effect of Numb on cell proliferation in vitro.


CONCLUSIONS
We found that Numb was obviously up-regulated in HCC tissues and cell lines (p<0.05). The Numb up-regulation correlated significantly with poor prognosis, and Numb status was identified as an independent prognostic factor. Over-expression of Numb increased proliferation in SMMC-7721 and BEL-7402 cells, while knock-down of Numb showed the opposite effect. Our study indicates that Numb up-regulation significantly correlates with cell proliferation and poor prognosis in hepatocellular carcinoma patients. It may be a useful biomarker for therapeutic strategy in hepatocellular carcinoma treatment.
Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, PR China.
Jian
J
Wu
Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, PR China.
Shun-Li
SL
Shen
Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, PR China.
Bin
B
Chen
Department of Nephrology, Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, PR China.
Jing
J
Nie
Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, PR China.
Bao-Gang
BG
Peng
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D006528:Carcinoma, Hepatocellular / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology; D045744:Cell Line, Tumor; D049109:Cell Proliferation; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D015870:Gene Expression; D006801:Humans; D053208:Kaplan-Meier Estimate; D008113:Liver Neoplasms / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology; D008297:Male; D008565:Membrane Proteins / Q000502:physiology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D009419:Nerve Tissue Proteins / Q000502:physiology*; D011379:Prognosis; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D015854:Up-Regulation; D055815:Young Adult
D008565:Membrane Proteins; D009419:Nerve Tissue Proteins; C113026:NUMB protein, human