Association between abnormal expression of glypican-3 and malignant transformation of hepatocytes

The prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC) is very poor.Both of early diagnosis(small-size HCC) and early treatment(operation) are of the utmost importance for prolonging survival.HCC could be diagnosed by HCC markers and imaging technologies.Although serum α-fetoprotein(AFP) is a useful tumor marker for the detection and monitoring of HCC development,the false-negative rate or the false-positive rate with AFP level alone may be still high for patients uith small-size HCC.Other markers such as AFP-L3,AFP-mRNA,GGT-Ⅱ,PIVKAⅡ and AFU are proposed as predictive markers of HCC,especially in the patients with false-negative AFP level and diagnosis of small-size HCC.Glypican-3(GPC-3) plays an important role in regulating cell growth and is closely related with hepatocellular carcinoma.This review summarizes the features of GPC-3 molecule,mechanism of abnormal expression,a variety of signal transduction pathway influenced by GPC-3 gene,and early diagnostic values for HCC.