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EIevated serum level of Thioredoxin in patients with Hepatocellular Carcinoma

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Biotherapy

Abstract

Thioredoxin (TRX) is known to contain an active site with aredox-active disulfide and has various biological activities. The objectiveof the present study was to investigate whether circulating TRX levels areelevated in patients with chronic hepatitis (CH) or liver cirrhosis (LC) andhepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). An anti-TRX monoclonal antibody andpolyclonal antibodies that specifically recognize TRX, were generated andused for the development of an ELlSA system to measure TRX levels in humanserum. The geometric mean and its 95% confidence interval of serumlevel of TRX in healthy volunteers was 81.75 ng/ml (74.60-89.59 ng/ml). Theserum level of TRX in LC/CH patients without HCC was 80.87 ng/ml(69.66-93.88 ng/ml). The value was not statistically different from that inserum from normal volunteers (p=0.69). In contrast, the serum level of TRXin patients with HCC was 147.35 ng/ml (125.53-1 72.96 ng/ml), which wassignificantly higher when compared with the level in serum of normalvolunteers (p<0.001) and in serum of LC/CH patients without HCC(p<0.001). In four patients with HCC, the initially high level of serum TRX(>150 ng/ml) decreased below 150 ng/ml after surgical removal of the tumor.The data reported herein revealed that patients with HCC had a significantlyelevated serum level of TRX, suggesting that measurement of serum of TRXmight be a useful clinical parameter when HCC is suspected.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Section for Studies on Host-Immune Response, National Cancer Center Research Institute, Tokyo, 104

    Kunihisa Miyazaki, Noriko Noda & Hiro Wakasugi

  2. Department of Surgery, Jichi Medical School, Omiya Medical Center, Omiya, 330

    Kunihisa Miyazaki & Michio Miyata

  3. Department of Internal Medicine, National Cancer Center Hospital, Tokyo, 104

    Shuichi Okada

  4. Immuno-Biological Laboratories Co., Fujioka, 375

    Yoshiaki Hagiwara

  5. Department of Clinical Laboratory, Jichi Medical School, Omiya Medical Center, Omiya, 330

    Ikunosuke Sakurabayashi

  6. Cancer Information and Epidemiology Division, Japan

    Naohito Yamaguchi

  7. Genetics Division, National Cancer Center Research Institute, Tokyo, 104, Japan

    Takashi Sugimura & Masaaki Terada

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  1. Kunihisa Miyazaki
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Miyazaki, K., Noda, N., Okada, S. et al. EIevated serum level of Thioredoxin in patients with Hepatocellular Carcinoma. Biotherapy 11, 277–288 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008032703468

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008032703468

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