Gene expression profiling of circulating CD133+ cells of hepatocellular carcinoma patients associated with HCV infection

Abstract

Aim: Identifying the genetic expression profile of CD133⁺ cells from HCC patients compared to CD133⁺ cells from healthy volunteers that may contribute in hepatocarcinogenesis process.

Method: Circulating CD133⁺ cells were sorted from the peripheral blood of HCC patients as well as from healthy volunteers using magnetic activated cell sorting. The differential expression profile of stem cell related genes was performed using the Stem Cell PCR profiling assay.

Results: Data analysis of stem cells related genes in CD133⁺ cells of the HCC group compared to the control group showed that; CCND2, COL1A1, CTNNA1, DLL3, JAG1, KRT15, MYC, NOTCH2, T and TERT were up-regulated (fold change=80, 68.6, 6.67, 7.22, 3.8, 15.2, 14.5, 105.6, 26.6 and 99 respectively while only CD3D was down-regulated (fold change=0.055) in HCC patients. However, after application of Beferroni correction to adjust P-value; KRT15 was the only gene that was significantly over expressed in CD133⁺ cells of HCC compared to control group (P-value=0.012).

Conclusion: KRT15 can be used to differentiate between circulating CD133⁺ cells from HCC group and control group. However, further study may be needed to confirm on the protein level.

Keywords: CD133(+) cells; HCV; Hepatocellular carcinoma.