Clinical Practice Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2018. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Mar 14, 2018; 24(10): 1152-1166
Published online Mar 14, 2018. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v24.i10.1152
Progesterone receptor membrane component 1 as a potential prognostic biomarker for hepatocellular carcinoma
Hung-Wen Tsai, Chung-Liang Ho, Shu-Wen Cheng, Yih-Jyh Lin, Chou-Cheng Chen, Pin-Nan Cheng, Chia-Jui Yen, Ting-Tsung Chang, Po-Min Chiang, Shih-Huang Chan, Cheng-Hsun Ho, Shu-Hui Chen, Yi-Wen Wang, Nan-Haw Chow, Jou-Chun Lin
Hung-Wen Tsai, Po-Min Chiang, Institute of Clinical Medicine, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan 70403, Taiwan
Hung-Wen Tsai, Chung-Liang Ho, Shu-Wen Cheng, Yi-Wen Wang, Nan-Haw Chow, Jou-Chun Lin, Department of Pathology, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan 70403, Taiwan
Hung-Wen Tsai, Chung-Liang Ho, Shu-Wen Cheng, Chou-Cheng Chen, Nan-Haw Chow, Jou-Chun Lin, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan 70403, Taiwan
Hung-Wen Tsai, Ting-Tsung Chang, Center of Infectious Disease and Signaling Research, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan 70403, Taiwan
Yih-Jyh Lin, Department of Surgery, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan 70403, Taiwan
Pin-Nan Cheng, Chia-Jui Yen, Ting-Tsung Chang, Cheng-Hsun Ho, Department of Internal Medicine, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan 70403, Taiwan
Shih-Huang Chan, Department of Statistics, College of Management, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan 70403, Taiwan
Cheng-Hsun Ho, Research Center of Clinical Medicine, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan 70403, Taiwan
Shu-Hui Chen, Department of Chemistry, College of Sciences, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan 70403, Taiwan
Author contributions: Lin JC, Cheng SW, Wang YW and Tsai HW conducted the experiments in this study, analyzed the data, and prepared the manuscript; Tsai HW, Ho CL, Chiang PM and Chow NH performed the pathological analysis; Lin YJ, Cheng PN, Yen CJ and Chang TT provided and analyzed the clinical information; Chen CC performed the TCGA data analysis; Chan SH conducted the statistical analysis; Ho CH and Chen SH performed the mass spectrometry and data analysis; Tsai HW designed the study.
Supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology, No. NSC102-2320-B-006-011., No. MOST103-2320-B-006-021-MY2, and No. MOST105-2320-B-006-033 to Tsai HW; and National Cheng Kung University Hospital, Taiwan, No. NCKUH-10406002 and No. NCKUH-10509001 to Tsai HW.
Institutional review board statement: The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the Human Experiment and Ethics Committee of NCKUH (No. BR-100-117).
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Data sharing statement: Technical appendix and study data are available from the corresponding author at hungwen@mail.ncku.edu.tw with the permission of Hung-Wen Tsai. Consent was not obtained but the presented data are anonymized and the risk of identification is low. No additional data are available.
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: Hung-Wen Tsai, MD, Associate Professor, Department of Pathology, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, 138 Sheng-Li Road, Tainan 70403, Taiwan. hungwen@mail.ncku.edu.tw
Telephone: +886-6-2353535-2635 Fax: +886-6-2766195
Received: December 11, 2017
Peer-review started: December 12, 2017
First decision: December 27, 2017
Revised: January 16, 2018
Accepted: January 24, 2018
Article in press: January 24, 2018
Published online: March 14, 2018
Processing time: 91 Days and 20.1 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Neither estrogen receptor or progesterone receptor are commonly expressed in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), implying the existence of other hormone-related events in the pathogenesis of HCC. Most primary HCC cases expressed progesterone receptor membrane component 1 (PGRMC1) (89.9%) in our clinical cohort (n = 89). Down-regulation of PGRMC1 was associated with poor tumor differentiation and worse patient survival. The potential prognostic significance was independently validated by The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database (n = 373). Knockdown of PGRMC1 promoted proliferation and a poorly differentiated phenotype in vitro. Overexpression of PGRMC1 resulted in suppressed proliferation in response to progesterone treatment. PGRMC1 is a prognostic marker and a potential auxiliary therapeutic target for human HCC.