Relationship between expression of bromodomain protein 4 and prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma patients and its effect on proliferation and apoptosis of HCCLM3 cells

YANG Shaohua; XIE Nan; QIAN Cheng; LI Chunman; FU Bimang

doi:10.3969/j.issn.1002-266X.2019.05.006

Abstract：Objective To detect the expression of bromodomain protein 4 (BRD4) in the hepatocellular carcinoma, analyze the relationship between its expression and prognosis, and to investigate the effect of silencing BRD4 on proliferation and apoptosis of hepatoma HCCLM3 cells. Methods The tumor tissues and adjacent tissues of 208 patients with liver cancer were collected. The expression of BRD4 was detected by immunohistochemistry. The tumor recurrence rate and survival time of patients with high and low expression of BRD4 were compared. The HCCLM3 cells with high expression of BRD4 were screened out and then were divided into the blank group, empty vector group and shRNA-1 inhibition group (the inhibition effect was obvious). The corresponding BRD4 lentivirus suppression gene sequence was transfected into the cells in the shRNA-1 inhibition group to inhibit its BRD4 expression, the empty vector group was added with lentivirus empty vector and transfection reagent, and the blank group was only added with transfection reagent. The expression of BRD4 in each group was detected by Western blotting. The cell proliferation was detected by CCK-8, and the apoptosis rate was detected by flow cytometry. Results The expression of BRD4 in the liver cancer tissues was higher than that in the adjacent tissues (P < 0.01). Patients with high BRD4 expression had higher tumor recurrence rate and lower postoperative survival than patients with low BRD4 expression (both P < 0.01). Compared with the other two groups, the OD value of the cell proliferation decreased and the apoptosis rate increased in the shRNA-1 inhibition group (both P < 0.01). Conclusion The prognosis of liver cancer patients with high expression of BRD4 is poor, and the inhibition of BRD4 expression can inhibit the proliferation of hepatoma cells and promote the apoptosis of liver cancer cells.