Estrogen receptor expression in chronic hepatitis C and hepatocellular carcinoma pathogenesis

Figure 2 Expression of estrogen receptor subtypes from normal and diseased subjects. A-C: Total RNA extracted from normal, HCV-related cirrhosis and HCV-related HCC livers was subjected to RT-PCR. The abundance of ESR1 (A) and ESR2 (B) transcripts was determined by real time PCR and normalized to the expression of HPRT. ESR1:ESR2 expression ratio was also plotted for the three groups (C). ^aP < 0.05 or ^bP < 0.001 was considered significant. D: Whole tissue lysates from liver tissues of normal, HCV and HCC subjects were subjected to Western blotting and probed with antibodies against ERα, ERβ and β-actin. Representative blots for each group are depicted. E-J: The bands corresponding to ERα, ERβ and β-actin were quantified by densitometric analyses using ImageJ. Expression of the ERα and ERβ was normalized to the expression of β-actin and plotted (E and F). The ERα:ERβ expression ratio was also plotted for normal, HCV and HCC group (G). Expression of ER subtypes and ERα:ERβ expression ratio in the male population of normal, HCV and HCC groups was plotted separately (H-J). ^aP < 0.05 was considered significant. HCV: Hepatitis C virus; HCC: Hepatocellular carcinoma; ER: Estrogen receptor.