Expression pattern of tumor markers in dogs with hepatocellular carcinoma

Abstract

Glypican-3 (GPC-3) and alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) are considered as the powerful biomarkers for human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The elevation of GPC-3 and AFP levels have commonly occurred in individuals HCC patients. Moreover, evaluation of mRNA expressing GPC-3 and AFP are useful to detect in HCC patients. In veterinary practice, the data of GPC-3 and AFP of mRNA expression are still limited. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate the GPC-3 mRNA and AFP mRNA expression in dogs with HCC compared to other hepatic diseases. Sixteen dogs were divided into 3 groups, including HCC (n=7), non-HCC (n=7), and healthy (n=2) groups. The liver tissue and plasma samples were collected. All samples were examined GPC-3 and AFP mRNA expression by Realtime RT-PCR.

The results showed that the expression levels of GPC-3 mRNA in liver samples of HCC dogs were statistically increased compared with normal dogs. Additionally, the finding revealed that there was a positive correlation between the expression of GPC-3 mRNA and levels of AST. Moreover, the diagnostic performance of GPC-3 mRNA was higher than AFP mRNA. Therefore, this study demonstrated the potential in the diagnosis of HCC and other liver diseases, especially GPC-3 mRNA. However, the evaluation of GPC-3 mRNA in dogs with HCC still needs to be investigated in large populations and develop the GPC-3 mRNA to the non-invasive HCC marker in the future.