The incidence of HCC is much higher in males than in females and the underlying mechanism is thought to be associated with female hormones. However, the role of ERa and ERa36 signaling in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remain largely known. In this study, we examined ERa and ERa36 in three cohorts, which included: (i) primary HCC patients (N = 76, cohort P), (ii) secondary HCC from metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) (N = 32, cohort S), and (iii) HCC from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) (N = 121). Our data showed that WtERa was downregulated and that ERa36 was upregulated in tumor tissues in both cohort P and TCGA data set. ERa36 was downregulated in tumor tissues in cohort S. In cohort P, wtERa was differentially expressed in gender (P<0.000), age (P= 0.004), tumor number (P= 0.043), tumor size (P=0.002), intrahepatic recurrence (P = 0.054). ERa36 was unequally expressed in different non-tumor liver status (P=0.040). WtERa was negatively associated with overall survival (OS) and disease free survival (DFS) in cohort P. Compared with non-tumor tissues, the expression of ERa36 was increased in primary HCC but decreased in secondary HCC, showing opposite expression patterns of ERa36 between primary HCC and secondary HCC. Collectively, Primary HCC is associated with the decreased WtERa but increased ERa36. The expression pattern of ERa36 is different between primary HCC and secondary HCC, as the former with the increased ERa36 but the latter with the decreased ERa36. Therefore, the expression of ERa36 may be used to differentiate the primary HCC and the secondary one. (Acknowledgement: Jian Zhang, Jianwei Ren, Charing CN Chong, and Paul BS Lai contributed to this study. The study was supported by Direct grant Ref No 4054222 from the Chinese University of Hong Kong).

Biography:
George G Chen is a professor in the Department of Surgery, Director of Surgical Research Laboratories, Faculty of Medicine, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, China. He has extensive experience in cancer research. He has authored or co-authored more than 190 papers and has written a number of books or book chapters.