Metabolic alterations in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) are fundamental for the development of diagnostic screening and therapeutic intervention since energy metabolism plays a central
role in differentiated hepatocytes. In HCC research, hepatoma cell lines (HCLs) like HepG2 and
Huh7 cells are still the gold standard. In this study, we characterized the metabolic profiles of
primary human hepatoma cells (PHCs), HCLs and primary human hepatocytes (PHHs) to determine
their differentiation states. PHCs and PHHs (HCC-PHHs) were isolated from surgical specimens
of HCC patients and their energy metabolism was compared to PHHs from non-HCC patients and
the HepG2 and Huh7 cells at different levels (transcript, protein, function). Our analyses showed
successful isolation of PHCs with a purity of 50–73% (CK18+). The transcript data revealed that
changes in mRNA expression levels had already occurred in HCC-PHHs. While many genes were
overexpressed in PHCs and HCC-PHHs, the changes were mostly not translated to the protein level.
Downregulated metabolic key players of PHCs revealed a correlation with malign transformation
and were predominantly pronounced in multilocular HCC. Therefore, HCLs failed to reflect these
expression patterns of PHCs at the transcript and protein levels. The metabolic characteristics of
PHCs are closer to those of HCC-PHHs than to HCLs. This should be taken into account for future
optimized tumor metabolism research.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa:de:qucosa:88456 |
| Date | 05 December 2023 |
| Creators | Schicht, Gerda, Seidemann, Lena, Haensel, Rene, Seehofer, Daniel, Damm, Georg |
| Publisher | MDPI |
| Source Sets | Hochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion, doc-type:article, info:eu-repo/semantics/article, doc-type:Text |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | 2072-6694, 10.3390/cancers14174227 |
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