High Indoleamine 2,3-Dioxygenase Expression along with Low Bridging Integrator-1 Expression in Hepatocellular Carcinoma Patients

Asghar, Kashif; Rana, Iftikhar Ali; Abubakar, Muhammad; Hasham, Kinza; Tahseen, Muhammad; Bilal, Sundus; Mehmood, Shafqat; Farooq, Asim; Siddique, Kashif; Loya, Asif

doi:10.31557/APJCP.2023.24.5.1591

High Indoleamine 2,3-Dioxygenase Expression along with Low Bridging Integrator-1 Expression in Hepatocellular Carcinoma Patients

Document Type : Research Articles

Authors

¹ Department of Basic Sciences Research, Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre, Lahore, 54782, Pakistan.

² Department of Pathology, Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre (SKMCH & RC), Lahore, Pakistan.

³ Department of Cancer Registry and Clinical Data Management, Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre, Lahore, 54782, Pakistan.

⁴ Department of Internal Medicine (Gastroenterology), Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre, Lahore, 54782, Pakistan.

⁵ Department of Clinical Research, Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre, Lahore, 54782, Pakistan.

⁶ Department of Radiology, Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre, Lahore, 54782, Pakistan.

10.31557/APJCP.2023.24.5.1591

Abstract

Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) adopts several tumor immune escape mechanisms; therefore, it has the potential to be targeted by immunotherapy. Indoleamine 2, 3-dioxygenase (IDO) is an immunosuppressive enzyme that has been observed to be overexpressed in HCC patients with poor prognoses. Bridging integrator 1 (Bin1) loss promotes immune escape in cancer by deregulating IDO. Our aim is to investigate IDO expression along with Bin1 expression to find evidence of immunosuppression in HCC patients. Materials and Methods: In this study, we investigated IDO and Bin1 expression in HCC tissue specimens and the correlation of IDO and Bin1 expression with clinicopathological characteristics and prognosis of HCC patients (n=45). Immunohistochemical analysis was performed to analyze the expression of IDO and Bin1. Results: IDO was overexpressed in 38 (84.4%) out of 45 HCC tissue specimens. In addition, tumor size was significantly increased with an increase in the IDO expression (P=0.03). Low Bin1 expression was observed in 27(60%) HCC tissue specimens, whereas the remaining 18(40%) showed high Bin1 expression. Conclusion: Our data showed that expression of IDO along with Bin1 expression could be investigated for clinical evaluation in HCC. IDO might be used as an immunotherapeutic target for HCC. Therefore, further studies in larger patient cohorts are warranted.

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