Levels of circulating endothelin‐1 and nitrates/nitrites in patients with virus‐related hepatocellular carcinoma

Abstract

A balance between endothelins (ET) and nitric oxide (NO) might interfere with liver haemodynamics and disease progression in various liver diseases. Increased levels of endothelin 1 (ET-1) and nitrites and nitrates (NO x , the end products of NO metabolism) have been reported in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), but the balance has not been studied. The purpose of this study was to assess the ratio of NO x to ET-1 in patients with virus-related hepatocellular carcinoma and to investigate its correlation with the extent of the disease. Eighteen patients with virus-related HCC (six Okuda stage I, six Okuda stage II and six Okuda stage III) were included in the study and were compared with 22 patients with viral cirrhosis (14 decompensated, eight compensated) and seven normal controls. ET-1 was measured with an ELISA assay and NO x with a modi®cation of the Griess reaction. Patients with virus-related HCC had the highest levels of circulating ET-1 and NO x (13.24 0.82 pg/ml and 112.28 18.56 lmol/l) compared to compensated cirrhosis (9.47 0.50 pg/ml, P < 0.004 and REFERENCES 1 Housset C, Rockey DC, Bissell M. Endothelin receptors in rat liver: Lipocytes as a contractile target for endothelin 1.

Relationship between endothelin-1 levels and pulmonary arterial hypertension in HIV-infected patients

“…Although there is little information in the scientific literature on the association between HCV and increased endothelin-1 in the HIV Endothelin-1 levels and pulmonary arterial hypertension in HIV-infected patients Feijoo et al 2697 population, the results of our study give added value to the importance of measuring endothelin-1 in this subgroup of patients. Results have also been published showing an increase in endothelin-1 in patients with HIV-related liver cirrhosis or HCC [35,36]. These patients had showed greater signs of endothelial damage than the control.…”

Insulin-mediated endothelin signaling is antiviral during West Nile virus infection

“…1F). The endothelin signaling pathway is not a canonical immune pathway; however, it has been linked to Mycobacterium tuberculosis (23) and Hepatitis B/C virus (HBV) (HCV) infection (24, 40) which leads us to consider that endothelin may also be involved during WNV infection and should be further analyzed. Further analysis of D. melanogaster genes associated with endothelin signaling outside the heatmap shows that insulin treatment + mock infection or insulin treatment + WNV-Kun infection cells had significant transcriptional activity compared to only WNV-Kun infected cells (Fig.…”

“…Specifically, we identified the endothelin signaling pathway and evaluated its importance for host survival and reducing WNV infection. Endothelin signaling is primarily associated in vasoconstriction and cardiovascular function (22) but has been suggested as a biomarker for various infectious disease pathogenesis (23)(24)(25), immune dysregulation (26,27), and insulin sensitivity (28,29). We then used this information to evaluate endothelin signaling in human cells.…”

NO and hepatocellular cancer

“…We first proposed that inflammation-induced iNOS expression, as seen in viral hepatitis, could be part of the pathogenesis of HCC in 1997 (Kane et al, 1997). Increased nitrite and nitrate levels are observed in patients with HCC (Moriyama et al, 1997), and a subset of HCC express iNOS mRNA or protein (Moriyama et al, 2000;Notas, Xidakis, Valatas, Kouroumalis, & Kouroumalis, 2001). Although the association between iNOS expression and decreased survival has been variable, there is mounting evidence that the expression of iNOS with other genes is associated with marked changes in tumour growth and reduced patient survival.…”