Overexpression of ST3Gal-I promotes migration and invasion of HCCLM3 in vitro and poor prognosis in human hepatocellular carcinoma

Han Wu,1,* Xue-Liang Shi,1,* Hai-Jian Zhang,2 Qing-Jie Song,1 Xiao-Bing Yang,1 Wei-Dong Hu,1 Guang-Lin Mei,1 Xi Chen,1 Qin-Sheng Mao,1 Zhong Chen1 1Department of General Surgery, The Affiliated Hospital of Nantong University, 2Research Center of Clinical Medicine, The Affiliated Hospital of Nantong University, Nantong, People’s Republic of China *These authors contributed equally tothis work Purpose: Excessive ST3Gal-I levels predict a poor outcome for patients with several types of tumors. This study aims to investigate the role of ST3Gal-Iin determining the invasive and metastatic potential of human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and clinical prognosis for patients with HCC.Methods: We compared the expression of ST3Gal-I in various HCC cell lines and in 20 pairs of tumor and peritumor tissue samples using Western blot analysis. Changes in the degree of invasiveness and migration were determined before and after small interfering RNA-induced knockdown of ST3Gal-I using a Transwell matrigel invasion assay and scratch wound assay. The correlation between ST3Gal-I expression and prognosis was determined in a large HCC patient cohort (n=273).Results: ST3Gal-I expression was higher in metastatic HCCLM3 cells and tumor tissue compared with normal adjacent tissue. Following the ST3Gal-I knockdown, the invasiveness and migration of HCCLM3 cells were markedly reduced. ST3Gal-I expression in HCC correlated closely with tumor thrombus (P5.0 cm, P=0.032), tumor node metastasis stages II–III (P=0.002), and Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer stages B–C (P