Tumor tissue microarray was used to detect the expression levels of OPN and CD44 in 302 hepatocellular carcinoma patients undergoing curative resection between 1997 and 2000 at our institute.
OPN expression, metastatic function, OPN promoter activity, and active transcription of OPN mRNA and its decay were assessed in the 2 HCC cell lines using standard techniques.
Our data suggest that an alternative splicing event (OPN-c) promotes extracellular cleavage of OPN by MMP-9, thus releasing a distinct region of OPN (OPN-5 kDa) that is essential for HCC cellular invasion and appears to correlate with metastatic potential.
This suggests that the preoperative plasma OPN level can be used as a predictive marker for HCC recurrence and may be helpful to assess the prognosis of patients with HCC after surgery.