Purpose: To investigate the differential proteins and related molecular mechanism of CDA-II (cell differentiation agent-II) induced therapy on a human hepatocellular carcinoma model in nude mice with high metastatic potential (LCI-D20).
Methods: After tumors were transplanted 11 days, mice were intraperitoneally injected with CDA-II (1,800 mg/kg) for 20 days continuously. The tumor growth-inhibitory efficiency in CDA-II treated groups was calculated. Proteins extracted from tumor tissue were separated by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2DE) and the differential proteins were identified by matrix assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS). Western blotting (WB) was performed to verify the expression of certain candidate proteins. Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was engaged to study the molecular mechanism of the therapy.
Results: CDA-II suppressed the growth and metastasis of tumor. The tumor growth-inhibitory efficiency was 41.8%. In total, 27 differentially expressed proteins were identified, including HSP27, UGDH, CK8, Hsp60, ENOA and AnxA5, with functions involved in oncogene expression and/or cell differentiation. In addition, apparent alternations of HSP60 and beta-actin expression levels and their different posttranslational modifications (PTMs) were investigated. RT-PCR analysis confirmed that the cancer related genes c-myc, N-ras and MMP-9 were significantly down-regulated.
Conclusion: Our results demonstrate that CDA-II presence can change the proteome profiling and favors of the tumor suppression in LCI-D20 cell differentiation. Our results also suggest that the dynamic PTM of HSP60 expression levels could be used to predict HCC and might be a promising and useful biomarker to prognosticate CDA-II therapeutic efficacy.