Figure 1.

Low iron was observed in clinical HCC samples and was potentially associated with metastasis

(A and B) Human HCC tumors (T) and their non-tumor (NT) adjacent tissues were subjected to determine (A) iron content and (B) mRNA (left) and protein (right) expression of iron-related genes. N = 29. (C) Iron content in the human normal (N) liver tissues, NT adjacent tissues, and HCC tumors was determined by magnetic resonance imaging. Both representative (left) and quantitative data (right) were showed. Red arrow, tumor. N = 10. (D) Human HCC tumors were resected from patients with metastasis (M) or non-metastasis (NM) 5 year later. Both iron content (left) and the mRNA expression (right) of iron-related genes were determined. N = 15. (E) The mRNA reads of TFRC, HAMP, and FTL from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. Data from a total of 374 primary solid T samples and 50 adjacent NT samples was analyzed. (F) The Kaplan-Meier analysis of overall survival for TFRC and HAMP subpanels of HCC patients from the TCGA database. N = 371. Data were presented as mean ± SEM. ∗p < 0.05, ∗∗p < 0.01 versus NT or versus NM. HCC, hepatocellular carcinoma; TFRC, transferrin receptor; HAMP, hepcidin; FTL, ferritin light chain.