title: Paired assessment of liver telomere lengths in hepatocellular cancer is a reliable predictor of disease persistence.
abstract: In the present study, we used a small series of highly defined patients, where we had matched timed peripheral blood samples (PBS), as well as paired liver biopsies obtained during collection of blood samples from patients with diagnosed hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and compared the correlation between the changes of telomere lengths in these defined samples. Patients included had either HCC alone or in conjunction with either pre-existing hepatitis B virus (HBV) or hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. PCR-based assay incorporating primers to the telomeric hexamer repeats to polymerize and detect telomeric DNA was used. The average telomere length for each independent assessment was measured by seeing the differences in the intensity of the sample's telomere signal (T) to the signal from a single-copy gene (S-, β-globin) to estimate the standard ratio. Our results provide the first convincing evidence that PBS may be utilized to assay telomere shortening as a predictor for disease persistence in HCC resulting after HBV or HCV infection, but not in non-infectious cause-stimulated HCC. These findings provide incipient opportunity to develop telomere length assessment as a biomarker tool for prediction of HCC in patients with HBV or HCV infection, as well as to gauge responses to chemotherapy and other treatment modalities.
authors.affiliation: Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery, The Affiliated Drum Tower Hospital, Medical School of Nanjing University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210093, China.
authors.forename: Wendu
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Feng
authors.affiliation: Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery, The Affiliated Drum Tower Hospital, Medical School of Nanjing University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210093, China.
authors.forename: Decai
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery, The Affiliated Drum Tower Hospital, Medical School of Nanjing University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210093, China.
authors.forename: Binghua
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery, The Affiliated Drum Tower Hospital, Medical School of Nanjing University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210093, China.
authors.forename: Ou-Yang
authors.initials: OY
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.affiliation: Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery, The Affiliated Drum Tower Hospital, Medical School of Nanjing University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210093, China.
authors.forename: Tiancheng
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery, The Affiliated Drum Tower Hospital, Medical School of Nanjing University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210093, China.
authors.forename: Yajuan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Cao
authors.affiliation: Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery, The Affiliated Drum Tower Hospital, Medical School of Nanjing University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210093, China drdingyitao@163.com.|Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Molecular Medicine, Medical School of Nanjing University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210093, China.
authors.forename: Yitao
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ding
mesh_terms: D006528:Carcinoma, Hepatocellular / Q000097:blood / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000235:genetics*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D018450:Disease Progression; D005260:Female; D006509:Hepatitis B / Q000097:blood / Q000235:genetics / Q000821:virology; D006526:Hepatitis C / Q000097:blood / Q000235:genetics / Q000821:virology; D006801:Humans; D007962:Leukocytes / Q000378:metabolism; D008099:Liver / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology; D008113:Liver Neoplasms / Q000097:blood / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000235:genetics*; D008297:Male; D011379:Prognosis; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012307:Risk Factors; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D016615:Telomere / Q000235:genetics*; D059506:Telomere Shortening / Q000235:genetics
keywords: Biomarker; HBV; HCC; HCV; telomere