Lecithin-cholesterol acyltransferase is a potential tumor suppressor and predictive marker for hepatocellular carcinoma metastasis

Figure 1 Lecithin-cholesterol acyltransferase expression is decreased in hepatocellular carcinoma and associated with metastasis and poor prognosis. A: Unsupervised hierarchical clustering using the gene expression profiles of GSE14520 microarray data among high metastasis risk hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) (HMRH), low metastasis risk HCC (LMRH) and normal liver tissues (NLT); B: Volcano plot illustrated the lipid-metabolism-related gene. Lecithin-cholesterol acyltransferase (LCAT) was significantly downregulated in HMH compared with LMH and NLT; C-E: Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) analysis of LCAT mRNA in the NLT (n = 32), cirrhotic liver tissue (CLT, n = 43), metastasis-free HCCs (n = 18), extrahepatic metastatic HCCs (extrahepatic metastasis, n = 6) (C), in the nonrecurrent HCCs (NRH, n = 17), early recurrent HCCs (n = 24), recurrent HCC tissues (n = 7) (D), and in 90 paired HCC samples (E); F: Western blot analysis of LCAT in seven HCCs and matched peritumoral tissues. β-Actin was used as the internal control; G: Immunohistochemical staining of LCAT in paired HCC samples; H-J: qRT-PCR analysis of LCAT mRNA in HCC with different tumor size, grade or etiologies; K-N: Recurrence-free survival and overall survival of HCC patients with low or high LCAT expression in both GSE14520 cohort and The Cancer Genome Atlas HCC cohort. ^aP < 0.01, ^bP < 0.0001, ^cP < 0.05, ^dP < 0.001. HCC: Hepatocellular carcinoma; LCAT: Lecithin-cholesterol acyltransferase; NLT: Normal liver tissues; CLT: Cirrhotic liver tissue; MFH: Metastasis-free hepatocellular carcinoma; ERH: Early recurrent hepatocellular carcinoma; RHT: Recurrent hepatocellular carcinoma; HBV: Hepatitis B virus; HCV: Hepatitis C virus; TCGA: The Cancer Genome Atlas.