Hepatic transcriptome of pediatric hepatoblastoma.

The mechanisms underlying hepatoblastoma are not well defined. To address this, we generated transcriptomic profiles of normal, background, and hepatoblastoma liver samples from patients aged 0.01 months to 6 years, using RNA-sequencing. Hepatoblasoma was histologically confirmed. Here we focus on the elevation of stem cell markers and the loss of tumor suppressor proteins leading to the development of hepatoblastoma in very young children. Overall design: Hepatic mRNA profiles of normal (n=3), background (n=6), and hepatoblastoma (n=23) tissues were generated through RNAsequencing using the Illumina HiSeq2500.