Decreased expression of SVEP1 is closely related to a cancer stem cell-like phenotype and poor prognosis in hepatocellular carcinoma

Abstract

The objective of this study was to investigate the expression of SVEP1 in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and to evaluate the association among SVEP1, cancer stem cell-like phenotype, and the prognosis of patients to provide new possibilities for the accurate diagnosis and strat ification of HCC. Two hundred HCC and paired adjacent tissues were analyzed by immunohistochemistry and scored, and their relationships with clinicopathological parameters and survival rates were analyzed. We found that compared with adjacent tissues, the expression of SVEP1 in HCC was relatively low and was closely related to tumor size, satellite nodule formation, and histological grade (p < 0.05). Statistical analysis showed that the survival rate of patients with low expression of SVEP1 decreased significantly (p < 0.05). Our results showed that the expression of SVEP1 was negatively correlated with the expression of the cancer stem cell markers CD44 and CD133 (p < 0.05). Moreover, multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that SVEP1 was an independent prognostic factor for the survival of HCC patients. In conclusion, our results suggest that decreased SVEP1 expression may promote HCC acquisition of a cancer stem cell-like phenotype, ultimately leading to heterogeneity and poor prognosis of HCC. This wo rk may provide new insight into the development of HCC and suggests a potential marker for predicting the prognosis of patients.

BVES-AS1 suppresses the colorectal cancer progression via the miR-1269a/b-SVEP1-PI3K/AKT axis

“…The proliferation, metastasis, bone invasion, and lung metastasis abilities were promoted by SVEP1 downregulation in liver cancer cells. 18,19 We first revealed the biological function of SVEP1 in CRC cells. The results suggested that SVEP1 downregulation promoted CRC cell proliferation, migration, invasion, and EMT.…”

“…Mechanistically, SVEP1 regulated the invasion and metastasis of HCC cells through the PI3K/ATK pathway. 18,19 However, the function of SVEP1 in CRC remains unknown.…”

The impact of decreased expression of SVEP1 on abnormal neovascularization and poor prognosis in patients with intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma

“…In addition, SVEP1 has been proven to play an important role in preventing tumor cells from invading bone niches as a key cell adhesion molecule ( Glait-Santar et al, 2012 ). In our previous studies, we found and reported that SVEP1, as a promising novel diagnostic and prognostic biomarker, plays various regulatory roles in the malignant progression of hepatocellular carcinoma ( Chen et al, 2020 ; Gong et al, 2022a ; Guo et al, 2022 ). In this study, we verified that the expression level of SVEP1 was dramatically decreased in the ICC tumor tissues when compared with the corresponding adjacent tissues and that it was negatively correlated with OS and DFS by using IHC in a 47 ICC patient tissue microarray.…”

“…SVEP1 is a newly reported secreted multidomain ECM, which is involved in embryonic development, cell adhesion and differentiation, and maintaining tissue microenvironment homeostasis ( Glait-Santar and Benayahu, 2012 ; Morooka et al, 2017 ; Samuelov et al, 2017 ). More importantly, in our previous studies, we found and reported that SVEP1 also plays a critical role in tumor heterogeneity ( Guo et al, 2022 ), proliferation and metastasis ( Chen et al, 2020 ), and tumor stem cell-like phenotype maintenance ( Gong et al, 2022a ). In this study, we firstly present the expression profile of SVEP1 and identified abnormal neovascularization in ICC.…”