High-resolution analysis of genomic profiles of hepatocellular carcinoma cells with differential osteopontin expression

Overexpression of osteopontin (OPN) could contribute to tumorigenesis and metastasis in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Previous studies have shown that OPN-positive cancer cells are often localized in the periphery of cancer nodules adjacent to stromal cells. To identify the difference in intratumor genomic aberration pattern between OPN-positive and OPN-negative HCC cells, we adopted microarray-based comparative genomic hybridization (array-CGH) to achieve high-resolution analysis of genome-wide aberrations. Our present study indicates that, compared to OPN-negative cancer cells, OPN-positive cancer cells show much more amplification of chromosomal regions, including 4q13.1-q13.3, 4q21.23-q22.1 and 13q32.1-q32.3. Some candidate tumor related genes, such as SMR3B, MUC7, EPHA5, SPP1 and CLDN10, were detected with over 1.5-fold amplification. Together, the intratumor genomic heterogeneity may suggest that OPN-positive cancer cells play a more important role in the development of HCC malignancy than their OPN-negative counterparts.