High expression of inositol polyphosphate phosphatase-like 1 associates with unfavorable survival in hepatocellular carcinoma.

Inositol polyphosphate phosphatase-like 1 (INPPL1), also known as SH2-containing inositol 5’-phosphatase 2 (SHIP2), has been suggested to act downstream of the PI3K/AKT pathway and play an important function in tumor development and progression. However, the associations between SHIP2 expression and the clinical features to determine its clinicopathologic significance in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) have not been investigated. In the present study, one-step quantitative PCR reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) and immunohistochemistry (IHC) analysis with HCC tissue microarrays (TMA) were employed to evaluate the expression of SHIP2 in HCC. The results showed that SHIP2 expression in the mRNA and protein levels was significantly higher in HCC tissue than in corresponding non-cancerous tissue (p = 0.0014 and p < 0.001, respectively). The expression of SHIP2 protein in HCC was related to tumor differentiation, α-fetoprotein level, liver cirrhosis, and five-year survival rate (all p < 0.05). Kaplan-Meier method and log-rank test indicated that high expression of SHIP2 (p = 0.017) and tumor differentiation (p = 0.036) showed significant correlations with poor prognosis of HCC patients. The data indicate that SHIP2 expression is correlated with significant characteristics of HCC, and it may be useful as an unfavorable prognostic factor in HCC.