The identified genes, such as GPC3 that are distinctly expressed in liver CD90(+)CSCs, may be promising gene candidates for HCC therapy without inducing damages to normal liver stem cells.
In conclusion, GPC3 is associated with the HCC cell biological behavior, while the relationship between GPC3 and EMT in tumorigenesis of HCC deserves future investigation.
RNAscope for GPC3 and GS panel was highly specific and sensitive for the pathological identification of dysplastic nodules, early stages of HCCs, and would differentiate them from HCCs and metastatic tumors compared with IHC.
It also was demonstrated that GPC3CAR-T cells displayed potent cytotoxicity against GPC3-positive HCC cell lines in vitro by using real-time cell analyser (RTCA) system and the JuLI™ Stage Cell History Recorder.
As the early warning biomarker, 3 or more anti-URGs were served as the threshold to separate the cirrhosis and HCC from others with a moderate sensitivity (58.3%) and specificity (80.0%), which was better than other biomarkers (AFP, AFP-L3, GPC3 and GP73) and would improve up to 70.3% when combined with another biomarker.
In this review, we summarize the current knowledge regarding the structure, function, and biology of GPC3 with a focus on its clinical potential as a diagnostic molecule and a therapeutic target in HCC immunotherapy.
Specific shRNA might intervene effectively GPC-3 activation and inhibit tumor cell proliferation, suggesting that GPC-3 gene should be a potential molecular target for HCC therapy.
Codrituzumab, a humanized monoclonal antibody against Glypican-3 (GPC3), which is expressed in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), was tested in a randomized phase II trial in advanced HCC patients who had failed prior systemic therapy.
These analyses were performed by comparing the expression of PTGR1 to that of two well-known markers of hepatocarcinoma, Glutathione S-transferase pi 1 (GSTP1) in rats and glypican-3 in humans.