Energy metabolism and cell motility defect in NK-cells from patients with Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Natural Killer (NK) cells play a central role in cell-mediated immune response to cancer. In previous studies number and function of NK-cells have been shown to be positively correlated with HCC outcome. In this study, we have performed a genetic expression analysis comparing mRNA expression by NK cells from HCC patients to patients with the pre-neoplastic condition of liver cirrhosis and to healthy donors. The bioinformatic analysis has been completed by an immunophenotypic study and functional analysis of the main NK cell functions. It is known that NK cells may present functional defects in HCC patients however previous studies have not systematically address the molecular mechanisms associated with these defects by an unbiased genetic expression study. We could identify altered cellular pathways and hypothesize possible mechanisms that could be targeted for restoring an immune-protective NK cell response. NK cells were isolated and sorted from Hepatitis C virus (HCV)-related liver cirrhosis (10 patients), early stage HCC and HCV-related liver cirrhosis (14 patients) and seven healthy donors. RNA from sorted NK cells was processed, labeled and hybridized to Agilent microarrays. Alessandra, Zecca