Unique molecular characteristics of NAFLD-associated liver cancer accentuate β-catenin/TNFRSF19-mediated immune evasion.

Background & Aims: The hepatic manifestation of the metabolic syndrome, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), can lead to the development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Despite a strong causative link, NAFLD-HCC is often underrepresented in systematic genome explorations.

Methods: Herein, tumor-normal pairs from 100 patients diagnosed with NAFLD-HCC were subject to next-generation sequencing.

Overexpression of ZFX confers self-renewal and chemoresistance properties in hepatocellular carcinoma.

Zinc finger protein X-linked (ZFX) is a zinc finger protein of Zfy family, which is highly conserved in vertebrates. This transcriptional regulator is not only highly expressed in embryonic stem cells (ESC) and hematopoietic stem cells, but is also upregulated in a number of human cancers where it is functional related to cell proliferation and survival. Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is highly aggressive cancer that commonly resistant to most chemotherapies and displays stemness characteristics.