Systematic proteomic analysis of human hepotacellular carcinoma cells reveals molecular pathways and networks involved in metastasis

Systematic proteomic studying of the mechanism of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) metastasis remains challenging. We performed comparative proteomic and pathway analysis of four human metastatic HCC cell lines to identify metastasis-associated proteins. These HCC cell lines had a similar genetic background but with an increasing potential of metastasis. Using a combination of two dimensional electrophoresis (2-DE) and MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry, a total of 125 proteins and their post-translational modification forms or isoforms were found to be differentially expressed in the cell lines. Among them, 29 were gradually up-regulated whereas 17 were down-regulated with increasing metastatic potential. Instead of a traditional single-gene readout, global bioinformatics analysis was carried out, which revealed that the glycolysis pathway was the most significantly enriched pathway. The heat shock proteins (HSPs) centered and NF-kappaB centered networks were also enriched in the result, which may imply the key function of inflaming on metastasis. Meanwhile, knockdown of HDGF, an up-regulated protein and a target of NF-kappaB, induced cell apoptosis in the metastatic HCC cells. This work provides a demonstration that a combination of bioinformatics and comparative proteomics can help in finding out potential biomarkers associated with HCC metastasis on the level of pathways.