Roles of Glypican-3 through IGF axis and Wnt in Hepatocellular Carcinomas

Wei Cheng^1-3, Shu-Hsiang Liu³, Wuh-Liang Hwu⁴, Yu-May Lee^4-6

¹Department of Pathology, Kee-Lung Hospital, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Kee-Lung, Taiwan

²Ching Kuo institute of Management and health, Kee-Lung, Taiwan

³School of Nursing, National Taipei University of Nursing and Health Sciences, Taiwan

⁴Department of Medical Genetics, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan

⁵Institute of Biological Chemistry, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan

⁶Institute of Biochemical Sciences, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan

*Corresponding author: Yu-May Lee, email:

Citation: Wei Cheng, et al. Roles of Glypican-3 through IGF axis and Wnt in Hepatocellular Carcinomas. Cancer Research Frontiers. 2017; 3(1): 144-156. doi: 10.17980/2017.144

Copyright: @ 2017 Wei Cheng, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Competing Interests: The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Received Jan 9, 2018; Revised Mar 15, 2018; Accepted Mar 20, 2018. Published Mar 31, 2018

Abstract:

Glypican-3 (GPC3) is overexpressed in more than 70% of hepatocellular carcinomas (HCCs) and also in Wilms’ tumor, hepatoblastoma, melanoma, and neuroblastoma. Considerable evidences indicate that GPC3 alters the growth of cancer cells through a few different mechanisms. For example, GPC3 stimulates both canonical and noncanonical Wnt signaling in cancer cells and GPC3 inhibits Hedgehog signaling during development. We and others further demonstrate the role of IGF-1R in GPC3-mediated oncogenicity. In this review, we summarize the mechanisms underlying the consequences of GPC3 overexpression in HCC. We also review current GPC3-targeted therapeutic approaches for HCC.

Keywords: glypican-3 (GPC3); insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor (IGF-1R); hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).