Expression and significance of MAGE-A9 in hepatocellular carcinoma

Objective To detect the expression of MAGE-A9 in human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), and to investigate the association between expression of MAGE-A9 and the clinicopathological characteristics of HCC. Methods Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), one-step quantitative-PCR (qPCR) and immunohistochemistry (IHC) methods were performed to characterize the expression of MAGE-A9 in HCC cell lines and tissues. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis and Cox regression were employed to evaluate the prognosis of 100 HCC patients. Results The expression of MAGE-A9 mRNA in HCC (4.44±0.342) was significantly higher than that in non-cancerous cells and tissues (1.73±0.178) (P<0.05). The expression level of the MAGE-A9 protein in HCC was related to the pathological grade (P=0.003), portal vein invasion (P=0.001), distant metastasis (P=0.022) and TNM stage (P=0.005). Cox regression analysis revealed that MAGE-A9 expression is an independent prognostic factor for disease-free survival (P=0.006) and overall survival (P=0.022). Conclusion MAGE-A9 is a valuable prognostic biomarker for HCC patients, and its high expression suggests unfavorable survival outcomes in HCC patients. Key words: Carcinoma, hepatocellular; MAGE-A9; Polymerase chain reaction; Immunohistochemistry; Prognosis