The cytobiological impact of insulin resistance on BMPs-related epithelial-mesenchymal transition of hepatocellular carcinoma

慢性肝病和胰岛素抵抗患者常发展为肝细胞癌，导致预后不良。近年来，胰岛素抵抗不仅参与心血管疾病的发展，还参与上皮-间质转化，与肿瘤细胞的癌变和恶性潜能有关。尽管在肝癌发生过程中胰岛素抵抗和上皮-间质转化相关的分子机制尚未完全阐明，但在本研究中，我们已经证明白细胞介素-6在胰岛素培养的肝癌细胞系中促进了上皮-间质转化。我们进一步发现，二肽基去肽酶-4抑制剂抑制白细胞介素-6引起的HepG2细胞上皮-间质转化。

Patients with chronic liver disease and insulin resistance frequently develop hepatocellular carcinoma, leading to poor progosis. Recently, insulin resistance is reported to be involved in the development of not only cardio-vascular disease, but also epithelial-mesenchymal transition, which link to carcinogenesis and malignant potential of tumor cells. Although molecular mechanism(s) for an association of insulin resistance and epithelial-mesenchymal transition is not fully elucidated in hepatocarcinogenesis, we have demonstrated that interleukin-6 promoted epithelial-mesenchymal transition in a hepatoma cell line cultured with insulin in this study. We further showed that dipeptidyl deptidase-4 inhibitor suppressed interleukin-6-caused epithelial-mesenchymal transition in HepG2 cells.