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By analyzing genetic alterations in different tumor regions of 10 HCCs, we observed extensive intratumor heterogeneity. Our patient-derived cell line-based model, integrating genetic and pharmacologic data from multiregional cancer samples, provides a platform to elucidate how intratumor heterogeneity affects sensitivity to different therapeutic agents.

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Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the third-most lethal cancer worldwide. Understanding the molecular pathogenesis of HCC recurrence and metastasis is the key to improve patients' prognosis. In this study, we report that protein tyrosine phosphatase receptor S (PTPRS) is significantly down-regulated in nearly 80% of HCCs, and its expression negatively correlates with aggressive pathological features, such as larger tumor size and advanced stage. In addition, PTPRS deficiency is independently associated with shorter survival and increased recurrence in patients, although 16.7% of HCCs show intratumor heterogeneous expression of PTPRS. Restoration of wild-type, but not mutant, PTPRS expression significantly inhibits HCC cell migration and invasion in vitro as well as lung metastasis in vivo, whereas knockdown of its expression significantly promotes invasion and metastasis. Notably, PTPRS-regulated HCC invasiveness is accompanied by typical changes of epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT). Moreover, PTPRS forms a complex with epithermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and regulates its tyrosine residues' phosphorylation. Ectopic expression of EGFR reverses the metastasis-inhibiting effects of PTPRS, whereas silencing of EGFR or inhibiting phosphorylation of key molecules in EGFR downstream pathways reinhibits EMT and metastasis caused by PTPRS down-regulation. Meanwhile, promoter hypermethylation of PTPRS is frequently detected in HCC samples and cell lines. Treatment with a demethylation agent, 5-aza-2 0 -deoxycytidine, recovers PTPRS expression in a dose-dependent manner. Conclusions: Epigenetic inactivation of PTPRS may increase phosphorylation and activity of EGFR signaling to promote EMT and metastasis in HCC. (HEPATOLOGY 2015;62:1201-1214 H epatocellular carcinoma (HCC), epidemic to Asia and Africa with an increasing incidence in Western countries, is the third-leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide.1 Less than 30% of HCCs are diagnosed at an early stage and are amenable for resection, liver transplantation, or local ablation.2 In advanced cases, the only effective systemic therapy is the multikinase inhibitor, sorafenib, with a partial response of only 2.2% and median overall survival (OS) of 9.2 months.3 Apart from sorafenib, several novel targeted agents or regimens have been tested; however, none of them showed any positive results, mandating alternative effective treatments.4 Therefore, understanding of the driving events of HCC progression and metastasis is of

Atypical chemokine receptors (ACRs) have been discovered to participate in the regulation of tumour behaviour. Here we report a tumour-suppressive role of a novel ACR member, CC chemokine receptor like 1 (CCRL1), in human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Both mRNA and protein expressions of CCRL1 correlated with the malignant phenotype of HCC cells and were significantly down-regulated in tumour tissue compared with paired normal liver tissue. In both the initial and validation cohorts (n = 240 and n = 384, respectively), CCRL1 deficiency was associated with advanced tumour stage and was an independent index for worse survival and increased recurrence. Furthermore, knock-down or forced expression of CCRL1 revealed that CCRL1 suppressed the proliferation and invasion of HCC cells in vitro and reduced tumour growth and lung metastasis in vivo, with depressed levels of CCL19 and CCL21. By sequestrating CCL19 and CCL21, CCRL1 reduced their binding to CCR7 and consequently mitigated the detrimental impact of CCR7, including Akt-GSK3β pathway activation and nuclear accumulation of β-catenin in tumour cells. Clinically, the prognostic value of the CCR7 expression in HCC depended on the expression level of CCRL1, suggesting that CCRL1 may serve as an upstream switch for the CCR7 signalling cascade. Together, our findings suggest that CCRL1 impairs chemotactic events associated with CCR7 in the progression and metastasis of HCC. Our results also show a potential interplay between typical and atypical chemokine receptors in human cancer. Copyright © 2014 Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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FTIR fiber-optic attenuated total reflectance (ATR) spectroscopy can identify in situ and in vivo colorectal cancer. FTIR spectroscopic method with fiber optics is a non-invasive, rapid, accurate and in vivo cancer detection technique in clinical diagnosis.

In the rhizobia-legume symbiotic interaction, bacterial surface polysaccharides, such as exopolysaccharide (EPS), lipopolysaccharide (LPS), K-antigen polysaccharide (KPS) or cyclic glucans (CG), appear to play crucial roles either acting as signals required for the progression of the interaction and/or preventing host defence mechanisms. The symbiotic significance of each of these polysaccharides varies depending on the specific rhizobia-legume couple. In this work we show that the production of exopolysaccharide by Sinorhizobium fredii HH103, but not by other S. fredii strains such as USDA257 or NGR234, is repressed by nod gene inducing flavonoids such as genistein and that this repression is dependent on the presence of a functional NodD1 protein. In agreement with the importance of EPS for bacterial biofilms, this reduced EPS production upon treatment with flavonoids correlates with decreased biofilm formation ability. By using quantitative RT-PCR analysis we show that expression of the exoY2 and exoK genes is repressed in late stationary cultures of S. fredii HH103 upon treatment with genistein. Results presented in this work show that in S. fredii HH103 EPS production is regulated just in the opposite way than other bacterial signals such as Nod factors and type 3 secreted effectors: it is repressed by flavonoids and NodD1 and enhanced by the nod repressor NolR. These results are in agreement with our previous observations showing that lack of EPS production by S. fredii HH103 is not only non-detrimental but even beneficial for symbiosis with soybean.