Genetic and epigenetic characteristics of human multiple hepatocellular carcinoma

Multiple carcinogenesis is one of the major characteristics of human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The history of multiple tumors, i.e., whether they are derived from a common precancerous or cancerous ancestor or individually from hepatocytes, is a major issue. Multiple HCC is clinically classified into intratumor metastasis (IM) and multicentric carcinogenesis (MC). Molecular markers differentiating IM and MC are of interest to clinical practitioners because clinical diagnosis of IM and MC often leads to different therapies. We analyzed multiple HCCs for somatic mutations of cancer-related genes, chromosomal aberrations, and promoter methylation of tumor suppressor genes, using techniques such as high-resolution melting, array-comparative genomic hybridization (CGH), and quantitative methylation-specific PCR. Comparative genomic hybridizaion experiments. A total of 20 tumor samples: ten pairs of HCC (from ten patients).