Levels of vitamin K, immunoreactive prothrombin, des-γ-carboxy prothrombin and γ-glutamyl carboxylase activity in hepatocellular carcinoma tissue |
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Authors: | HIDEHARU YAMAGATA TOSHIMI NAKANISHI MIDORI FURUKAWA HIROAKI OKUDA HIROSHI OBATA |
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Affiliation: | Institute of Gastroenterology, Tokyo Women's Medical College, Tokyo, Japan |
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Abstract: | Abstract To clarify the mechanism of production of des-γ-carboxy (abnormal) prothrombin (DCP) by hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), we measured the levels of vitamin K, DCP, immunoreactive prothrombin and the activity of γ-glutamyl carboxylase in liver tissues from HCC patients and in the medium of cultured human hepatoma cells. There was no significant difference in vitamin K (K1, MK-4) contents between HCC and non-HCC cirrhotic liver tissues. The activity of γ-glutamyl carboxylase per unit amount of endogenous microsomal prothrombin precursor was decreased in HCC tissue compared with non-HCC liver tissue (positive plasma DCP: 335 ± 72 vs 372 ± 67, negative plasma DCP: 370 ± 84 vs 393 ± 56 nmol/min per mg prothrombin precursor, P > 0.05), although the total incorporation of 14COOH into microsomal precursor protein was higher in the former. By contrast, levels of DCP and immunoreactive prothrombin in HCC tissue were greater ( P > 0.05) than those in non-HCC cirrhotic liver tissue. Furthermore, production of large amounts of immunoreactive prothrombin was observed in human hepatoma cells huH-1 and huH-2, which produced large amounts of DCP. These results suggest that there was excessive synthesis of prothrombin precursors by human HCC tissue and hepatoma cell lines huH-1 and huH-2. Thus, excessive synthesis of prothrombin precursors seems to be the main mechanism of DCP production by HCC. |
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Keywords: | des-γ-carboxy prothrombin, γ-glutamyl carboxylase, hepatocellular carcinoma, vitamin K. |
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