Abstract
More and more studies have shown that Branched chain amino acid transaminase 1 (BCAT1) is involved in the occurrence and development of a variety of tumors. However, the mechanism of its occurrence and development in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains unclear. Here, we demonstrated the relationship between BCAT1 and AKT signaling pathway, as well as EMT, and the clinical significance of BCAT1 by using BCAT1 expression in 5 cell lines and 113 liver cancer and non-liver cancer tissue samples. The results showed that the expression of AKT was positively correlated with BCAT1 in HCC tissues, and BCAT1 could promote the progression of HCC cells through the AKT signaling pathway. Clinical analysis and Bioinformatics technology analysis revealed that BCAT1 was correlated with poor prognosis, and BCAT1 expression in the HCC tissues was evidently correlated with tumor number, vascular invasion, Edmondson grade and TNM stage (P < 0.05). In vitro studies showed that BCAT1 increased the invasion and migration of in MHCC-97H cells a d Huh7 cells. By inhibiting the expression of the BCAT1 gene, we detected the corresponding changes in the expression levels of Twist, E-cadherin and Vimentin, confirming that BCAT1 may promote the invasion and migration of HCC cells through epithelial-mesenchymal transformation (EMT). Overall, BCAT1 can activate AKT signaling pathway and EMT to promote the development and metastasis of HCC cells. this study may provide new ideas and directions for cancer diagnosis and treatment.
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The data used to support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding authors upon request.
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Acknowledgements
The principal authors are very grateful for the patients who participated in the study.
Funding
The present study was in part supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 82060505), Science and Technology Projects of Ganzhou City (Grant Nos. GZ2017ZSF053 and GZ2017ZSF264), Science and technology research project of the Education Department of Jiangxi Province (Grant No. GJJ201516). Key Project of Key Research and Development Plan of Jiangxi Province (Grant No. 20212BBG71013).
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Experiments was designed by QL. Data collection and analysis were performed by YD, XW, SL and AL. The first draft of the manuscript was written by YD and XW. The manuscript was revised by BX and XH. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Ding, Y., Wang, X., Lu, S. et al. BCAT1, as a prognostic factor for HCC, can promote the development of liver cancer through activation of the AKT signaling pathway and EMT. J Mol Histol 54, 25–39 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10735-022-10108-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10735-022-10108-3