Decreased expression of Small glutamine-rich tetratricopeptide repeatcontaining protein (SGT) correlated with prognosis of Hepatocellular carcinoma

Abstract

Small glutamine-rich tetratricopeptide repeat-containing protein (SGT) is an ubiquitously expressed cochaperone of heat shock cognate protein of 70 kDa (Hsc70). SGT binds to the C terminus of Hsc70 to recruit Hsc70 into complexes of diverse function. SGTB was identified as an isoform of SGT with 60% amino acid sequence homology. To investigate the expression of SGTB in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and determine its correlation with tumor progression and prognosis, we evaluated the expression levels of SGTB in HCCs and corresponding adjacent non-tumor liver tissues. We also assessed the association between their expression and clinicopathologic parameters. The expression of SGTB was absent or low in HCCs while it was notable in paracancerous tissues from 108 patients by western blotting and immunochemistry (P < 0.05). Among the 108 HCCs, low expression of SGTB was associated with gender, histological grade (P<0.001) and HBsAg expression (P=0.002). Univariate analysis showed that the low SGTB expression was associated with poor prognosis (P<0.001). Thus, decreased expression of SGTB may be a favorable independent poor prognostic parameter for hepatocellular carcinoma.