Oncofetal antigen glypican-3 as a promising early diagnostic marker for hepatocellular carcinoma

Advances in the study of oncofetal antigen glypican-3 expression in HBV-related hepatocellular carcinoma

“…Positive GPC-3 staining in the liver cytoplasm revealed the morphological stages of granule-like degeneration, atypical hyperplasia (a precancerous stage), and malignant transformation of hepatocytes. A previous study by the current authors found that the level of GPC-3 mRNA expression in the liver was 100%, expression of GPC-3 in the liver was 100%, and expression of GPC-3 in serum was 77.8% in patients with HCC; the level of GPC-3 mRNA expression in the liver was 100%, expression of GPC-3 in the liver was 100%, and expression of GPC-3 in serum was 66.7% in patients with precancerous lesions; the level of GPC-3 mRNA expression in the liver was 83.3%, expression of GPC-3 in the liver was 83.3%, and expression of GPC-3 in serum was 38.9% in patients with degenerated hepatocytes; and GPC-3 was not detected in the control group (17). Expression of GPC-3 mRNA in the liver was closely correlated with expression of total RNA in the liver, the level of GPC-3 protein in the liver, and the level of GPC-3 in serum, indicating that abnormal expression of GPC-3 mRNA or protein (which are associated with the malignant transformation of hepatocytes) should be a promising molecular marker for early diagnosis of HCC (18).…”

“…Clinical studies have reported that GPC-3 is specifically over-expressed in HCC and that it is a valuable marker for diagnosis of HCC and estimation of its prognosis (17,24). GPC-3 promotes the growth of HCC by stimulating canonical Wnt signaling.…”

Expression of Glypican-3 in Mouse Embryo Stem Cells and its Derived Hepatic Lineage Cells Treated with Diethylnitrosamine in vitro

“…In HPCs and HCs treated with DEN, its expression was strongly observed in cytoplasm. And positive GPC-3 expression showed as brown granule-like staining localized in the cytoplasm in a hepatoma model of rats induced with 0.05% 2-fluorenylacetamide (Yao et al, 2011). Actually, immunohistochemical staining of GPC-3 showed its expression was localized diffuse in cytoplasm, granular in cytoplasm and membranous in hepatocellular carcinoma (Shirakawa et al, 2009a).…”

Primary and Metastatic Tumours of the Liver: Expanding Scope of Morphological and Immunohistochemical Details in the Biopsy

“…The applications of glypican-3 could extend beyond liver biopsy -and return to it. It could possible to use glypican-3 plasma levels for diagnostics and monitoring of HCC [61][62][63]. Immunotherapy could be guided towards glypican-3; the present research is exploring both antibody and cell-based immunological mechanisms [64][65].…”