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Evaluating hepatocellular carcinoma cell lines for tumour samples using within‐sample relative expression orderings of genes
Author(s) -
Ao Lu,
Guo You,
Song Xuekun,
Guan Qingzhou,
Zheng Weicheng,
Zhang Jiahui,
Huang Haiyan,
Zou Yi,
Guo Zheng,
Wang Xianlong
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
liver international
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.873
H-Index - 110
eISSN - 1478-3231
pISSN - 1478-3223
DOI - 10.1111/liv.13467
Subject(s) - hepatocellular carcinoma , carcinoma , medicine , breast carcinoma , colorectal cancer , cancer research , oncology , cancer , clear cell carcinoma , pathology , breast cancer
Abstract Background & Aims Concerns are raised about the representativeness of cell lines for tumours due to the culture environment and misidentification. Liver is a major metastatic destination of many cancers, which might further confuse the origin of hepatocellular carcinoma cell lines. Therefore, it is of crucial importance to understand how well they can represent hepatocellular carcinoma. Methods The HCC ‐specific gene pairs with highly stable relative expression orderings in more than 99% of hepatocellular carcinoma but with reversed relative expression orderings in at least 99% of one of the six types of cancer, colorectal carcinoma, breast carcinoma, non‐small‐cell lung cancer, gastric carcinoma, pancreatic carcinoma and ovarian carcinoma, were identified. Results With the simple majority rule, the HCC ‐specific relative expression orderings from comparisons with colorectal carcinoma and breast carcinoma could exactly discriminate primary hepatocellular carcinoma samples from both primary colorectal carcinoma and breast carcinoma samples. Especially, they correctly classified more than 90% of liver metastatic samples from colorectal carcinoma and breast carcinoma to their original tumours. Finally, using these HCC ‐specific relative expression orderings from comparisons with six cancer types, we identified eight of 24 hepatocellular carcinoma cell lines in the Cancer Cell Line Encyclopedia (Huh‐7, Huh‐1, HepG2, Hep3B, JHH ‐5, JHH ‐7, C3A and Alexander cells) that are highly representative of hepatocellular carcinoma. Evaluated with a REO s‐based prognostic signature for hepatocellular carcinoma, all these eight cell lines showed the same metastatic properties of the high‐risk metastatic hepatocellular carcinoma tissues. Conclusions Caution should be taken for using hepatocellular carcinoma cell lines. Our results should be helpful to select proper hepatocellular carcinoma cell lines for biological experiments.