High KIF18A expression correlates with unfavorable prognosis in primary hepatocellular carcinoma

// Weijia Liao 1,2,* , Guojin Huang 1,* , Yan Liao 3 , Jianjun Yang 1 , Qian Chen 1 , ShengJun Xiao 4 , Junfei Jin 1,2 , Songqing He 1,2 and Changming Wang 5 1 Laboratory of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery, Affiliated Hospital of Guilin Medical University, Guilin, Guangxi, People’s Republic of China 2 Guangxi Key Laboratory of Molecular Medicine in Liver Injury and Repair, Guilin, Guangxi, People’s Republic of China 3 Disease Prevention and Control Center of Guilin,Guilin, Guangxi, People’s Republic of China 4 Division of Pathology, Affiliated Hospital of Guilin Medical University, Guilin, Guangxi, People’s Republic of China 5 Division of Respiratory Diseases, Affiliated Hospital of Guilin Medical University, Guilin, Guangxi, People’s Republic of China * These two authors contributed equally to this work Correspondence: Junfei Jin, email: // Songqing He, email: // Changming Wang, email: // Keywords : Hepatocellular carcinoma ; KIF18A ; Prognosis; Biomarker Received : May 1, 2014 Accepted : June 6, 2014 Published : June 8, 2014 Abstract This study aimed to investigate KIF18A expression in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and to determine the possibility of KIF18A expression being a biomarker in HCC diagnosis or being an independent predictor of disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) in HCC patients underwent surgical resection. KIF18AmRNA was detected in 216 cases of HCC tissues by quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) and in 20 cases of HCC tissues by semi-quantitative RT-PCR. KIF18A protein was determined in 32 cases of HCC tissues by immunohistochemistry (IHC). The survival probability was analyzed by Kaplan-Meier method, and survival curves between groups were obtained by using the log-rank test. Independent predictors associated with DFS were analyzed with Stepwise Cox proportional hazard models. High KIF18A mRNA level was detected in 154 out of 216 (71.3%) cases of HCC . The positive rate of KIF18A expression was significantly higher in liver cancer tissues than that in adjacent normal liver tissues (ANLT) from HCC patients [65.6% (21 of 32) vs. 25.0% (8 of 32), P =0.001]. The KIF18A expression level had positive relevance to the alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) ( ≥ 200 ng/ml), tumor size ( ≥5cm ), clinical tumor-node-metastasis ( TNM) stage and portal vein tumor thrombus (PVTT) in HCC (all P <0.05) . A survival analysis indicated that HCC patients with higher KIF18A expression had a significantly shorter DFS and OS after resection . A multivariate analysis suggested that KIF18A upregualtion was an independent factor for DFS [hazard risk (HR)=1.602; 95% confidence interval ( CI ), 1.029-2.579; P =0.031] and OS (HR=1.682; 95% CI , 1.089-2.600; P =0.019). KIF18A might be a biomarker for HCC diagnosis and an independent predictor of DFS and OS after surgical resection.