5). Finally, for each paired HCC patient sample we tested the correlation between a specific ABC expression profile and a corresponding validated
miRNA (Fig. 6; Fig. S3). We expected an inverse ABC-miRNA correlation; therefore, tumors with a high ABC expression should simultaneously present a low validated miRNA levels and vice versa. As anticipated, our positive Dabrafenib clinical trial control, the previously published ABCE1/miR-203 pair, presented a good qualitative correlation with 9 out of 10 tumors having high ABCE1 and low miR-203 levels (Fig. S3). However, the correlation coefficient R2 = 0.6433 indicating that the samples do not fit a linear regression, likely due to the low number of samples (n = 10) and the absence of samples displaying down-regulated ABCE1 expression in the sample set. We therefore discarded GSI-IX cost R2 as a quantitative readout and determined only a qualitative
response, i.e., if for each ABC/miRNA pair a majority of tumors present a high ABC expression and a low validated miRNA level. ABCC5/miR-101 pair presented a good correlation with 9 out of 10 HCC samples being high for ABCC5 and low for miR-101 (Fig. 6). ABC/miRNA pairs ABCC5/let-7a, ABCC5/mir-125a, and ABCC5/miR-125a showed similar results (Fig. 6). The other verified ABC/miRNA pairs also showed inverse correlations in expression profile in each individual patient tumor (Fig. S3). This negative correlation would require validation on a larger sample set but provides indication of a miRNA regulation of ABC genes in HCC. In the current PLEK2 study we quantified the expression of 15 ABC transporters in 19 paired HCC and AHL patient samples. The majority had not received chemotherapy prior to sampling (16/19 untreated patients) and in most (14/19) the etiology was alcoholic cirrhosis. We showed that 12 ABC genes were up-regulated in HCC. In several patients the ABC genes were up-regulated up to 2-fold and the physiological relevance of such a mild regulation needs additional attention. We speculate that in the context of chemotherapy, even changes of 1.5-fold may tip the toxic
concentration of the drug due to changes in efflux activity of the ABC genes in the tumor cells, therefore resulting in a significant physiological effect. Up-regulation of some of these transporters has been described previously, e.g., ABCB17, 8 and ABCC39 were up-regulated in HCC. The expression of three ABC genes, ABCA1, ABCC6, and ABCG2, was not significantly changed in this study. Interestingly, ABCA1 and ABCG2 down-regulation was shown in HCC compared with adjacent HL in patients of unknown treatment status,11 and the two genes were respectively 14.6 and 9.3-fold up-regulated in TACE-treated samples.30 These mixed results may indicate a high variability in the expression of ABCA1 and ABCG2 in HCC patients, possibly linked to treatment status.