Expression of wild type and variant estrogen receptors in human hepatocellular carcinoma

To investigate the expression of wild type estrogen receptor (wER) and the exon-5 deleted ER (variant ER, vER) in human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) samples, and thereafter analyze the possibility of HCC treatment by endocrine therapy.The mRNA expressions of wER and vER were analysed from 28 cases of HCC by RT-PCR. The expression of ER at the protein level was detected by immunohistochemistry (IHC).IHC results showed that 39.3% of the HCC specimens expressed ER. The mRNA of wER was detected in 89.3% (25/28) of the HCC specimens while that of vER was detected in 96.4%(27/28). Twenty four out of 28 HCC cases (85.7 %) expressed both wER and vER. One out of 28 patients (3.5%) expressed only wER whereas 3 patients out of 28 (10.7%) expressed vER only.Ninety six percent(27/28) of the HCC patients expressed vER,which suggests that the expression of vER is an important event in the development of HCC.PubMed06620-23