Background: Notch signaling has been linked to many cancers. However, there is still limited information about the expression and role of the Notch ligand in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).
Objective: To investigate the expression of JAG1 and DLL4 in HCC tissues.
Methods: One hundred and forty-five HCC tissues in paraffin block since 2009 to 2016 at King Chulalongkorn Memorial hospital were assayed for JAG1 and DLL4 by immunohistochemistry. All the sections were separately analyzed in tumor and adjacent non-tumor tissue and scoring based on intensity and quantity of immunoreaction. Kruskal-Wallis H test examined the correlation between JAG1 and DLL4 protein expression and clinical pathology.
Results: The expression of JAG1 and DLL4 of tumor cells is 57.2% (83/145) and 88.9% (129/145), respectively. The expression of JAG1 is significantly higher in tumor tissues than adjacent non-tumor tissues (P = 0.002), and significantly increased in patients with age < 60 years old (P = 0.007). Interestingly, the DLL4 expression is also expressed in the normal liver tissue and DLL4 expression is not associated with any of the clinical parameters. When we performed a subgroup analysis, in HCC patients without a viral infection analysis, JAG1 is significantly increased in HCC patients with low albumin level (≤ 3.5) (P = 0.043).
Conclusions: JAG1 expression is increased in HCC and seems to correlate with HCC patients with earlier onset and lower albumin level, whereas DLL4 expression did not significantly correlate with any clinical features.