Figure 5.

Thermally stressed human hepatocytes induce proliferation of HCC cell lines and activation of multiple factors including the FGF protein family. (A–E) Medium derived from human immortalized hepatocytes heated to 43 °C × 5 min or 10 min followed by incubation for 3 h at 37 °C led to increased growth when added into the media of several types of unheated human cancer cell lines (N = 10). (F) qRT-PCR indicates increase in mRNA levels of TNFα and IL-6 in human immortalized hepatocytes heated to 43 °C × 5 min followed by incubation for 3 h at 37 °C. (G) Multiplex ELISA analysis showed high levels of multiple pro-tumorigenic factors secreted by human immortalized hepatocytes subjected to moderated hyperthermia (43 °C × 5 min) and subsequent 3 h 37 °C incubation. For all experiments p-values calculated by two tailed t-test *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01.