West Asia Organization for Cancer Prevention (WAOCP), APOCP's West Asia Chapter. Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention 1513-7368 22 4 2021 04 01 Altered Protein and Gene Expression of Beclin-1 Correlates with Poor Prognosis of Hcv-Associated Hepatocellular Carcinoma in Egyptian Patients 1115 1122 89549 10.31557/APJCP.2021.22.4.1115 EN Nermine Ahmed Ehsan Department of Pathology, National Liver Institute, Menoufia University, Egypt. 0000-0003-4493-6647 Asmaa M Mosbeh Molecular Pathology, National Liver Institute, Menoufia University, Egypt. Sally Waheed Elkhadry Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, National Liver Institute, Menoufia University, Egypt. Asmaa Ibrahim Gomaa National Liver Institute, Menoufia University, Shebin El-Kom, Egypt. Maha Mohamed Elsabaawy National Liver Institute, Menoufia University, Shebin El-Kom, Egypt. Dina Shehata Elazab Department of Pathology, National Liver Institute, Menoufia University, Egypt. Journal Article 2020 12 04 Autophagy modulation has recently been addressed as a novel target for overcoming therapeutic resistance in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) to currently available anti-HCC therapy. The aim of this study was to investigate the protein and gene expression of Beclin-1 and its correlation with prognosis in HCV-associated HCC in Egyptian patients. This prospective study included 50 patients with HCV-associated-HCC, treated with surgical resection. Immunohistochemistry of antibody and quantitative real-time PCR of Beclin-1 gene were assessed in liver tissues of HCC. A normal-like expression pattern of Beclin-1 was found in 100% of adjacent liver tissues, while in HCC three various patterns were recognized: negative expression [18 (36%)], over expression [16 (32%)] and normal pattern [16 (32%)] (p=0.001). Beclin-1 mRNA in HCC tissues correlated with protein expression with correlation coefficient of 0.774 (p <0.001). Patients with negative expression of Beclin-1 had a significantly poor overall survival rates compared with patients with normal-like expression pattern (p <0.007), which was confirmed by multivariate analysis (p=0.01). Over-expression of Beclin-1 was significantly associated with vascular invasion (p <0.003). However, high tumor histological grade, focal lesion multiplicity, presence of involved margin or cirrhosis were insignificantly related to Becin-1. Beclin-1 altered expression has an important role in development and prognosis of HCC. https://journal.waocp.org/article_89549_ad8f137e47e0796333083e58e584dbfd.pdf