Copyright
©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jan 7, 2016; 22(1): 275-283
Published online Jan 7, 2016. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v22.i1.275
Published online Jan 7, 2016. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v22.i1.275
Glypican-3 is a prognostic factor and an immunotherapeutic target in hepatocellular carcinoma
Yukihiro Haruyama, Hiroaki Kataoka, Section of Oncopathology and Regenerative Biology, Department of Pathology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Miyazaki, Miyazaki 889-1692, Japan
Author contributions: Haruyama Y and Kataoka H contributed equally to this work; Haruyama Y and Kataoka H designed the review style, reviewed literatures and wrote the paper.
Supported by Collaborative Research Fund from Chugai Pharmaceutical Co. (to Kataoka H); and Grant-in-Aid from The Ministry of Education, Culuture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan, No. 24390099 (to Kataoka H).
Conflict-of-interest statement: Kataoka H receives collaborative research funding from Chugai Pharmaceutical Co. Haruyama Y declares no potential conflicts of interest with respect to this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Hiroaki Kataoka, MD, PhD, Section of Oncopathology and Regenerative Biology, Department of Pathology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Miyazaki, 5200 Kihara, Kiyotake, Miyazaki 889-1692, Japan. mejina@med.miyazaki-u.ac.jp
Telephone: +81-985-852809 Fax: +81-985-856003
Received: May 25, 2015
Peer-review started: May 27, 2015
First decision: August 31, 2015
Revised: October 29, 2015
Accepted: November 19, 2015
Article in press: November 19, 2015
Published online: January 7, 2016
Processing time: 220 Days and 4 Hours
Peer-review started: May 27, 2015
First decision: August 31, 2015
Revised: October 29, 2015
Accepted: November 19, 2015
Article in press: November 19, 2015
Published online: January 7, 2016
Processing time: 220 Days and 4 Hours
Core Tip
Core tip: Glypican-3 is frequently overexpressed in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Accumulating evidence indicates that high glypican-3 expression is a significant prognostic factor that predicts poor outcome of patients with HCC. Thus, it serves as a promising molecular target for the development of novel therapies for HCC, and preclinical and clinical trials targeting glypican-3 are currently underway. Evaluation of the glypican-3 levels in HCC tissues or in sera of patients with HCC would be of value for predicting the patients’ prognosis and companion diagnostics for future glypican-3-targeting therapies.