Liver cancer has relatively few early symptoms and is usually diagnosed in the advanced stage. Sorafenib is the only first-line anticancer drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for advanced HCC; however, its use is limited due to resistance. Therefore, the development of new drugs is essential to achieving customized treatment. Many studies have suggested that Yes-associated protein (YAP)/transcriptional co-activator with PDZ-binding motif (TAZ) is associated with metastasis and cancer formation and progression in various cancers. In the present study, YAP was overexpressed in various patient-derived hepatocarcinoma (HCC) tissues. In addition, this study examined whether evodiamine (which has anticancer effects) can inhibit YAP and, if so, modulate HCC. Evodiamine significantly reduced both the YAP level and cell growth of HCC in a dose-dependent manner. Biochemical analysis indicated mitochondria dysfunction-mediated apoptosis to be the cause of the reduction in HCC cell growth by evodiamine. YAP was overexpressed in metastatic HCC tissues as well when compared to primary HCC tissues. Migration and invasion analysis showed that evodiamine has anti-metastatic ability on Hep3B and Huh-7 cells and reduces the level of vimentin, an EMT marker. In conclusion, YAP is a critical target in HCC therapy, and evodiamine can be an effective HCC anticancer drug by reducing the YAP level.
Keywords: AMPK; HCC; YAP; evodiamine; liver cancer.