Hepatitis B Virus X Protein-Induced ROR Expression to Promote the Migration and Proliferation of Hepatocellular Carcinoma.

Aberrant expression of ROR is implicated in cancer development. A previous study identified that ROR functions as a tumor promoter to drive hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) growth. However, its expression and significance in HCC remain unclear. The central finding of this work is that ROR was overexpressed in HCC due to its dysfunction of promoter methylation, and hepatitis B virus X protein (HBx) can remarkably induce the expression of ROR in hepatocellular carcinoma through enhancing the transcriptional function. Also, the HBx-induced ROR could promote the migration and proliferation of hepatoma cells. Hence, these results suggest that ROR was an important regulator in HCC, and our finding provides new insights into the significance of ROR in HCC.