Overexpression of the metastasis-associated gene MTA3 correlates with tumor progression and poor prognosis in hepatocellular carcinoma.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common and aggressive cancers in the world. However, there remains a lack of effective diagnostic and treatment markers. We aimed to explore metastasis-associated protein 3 (MTA3) expression and function in HCC and its relationship with clinicopathological factors. We investigated the expression pattern and clinicopathological significance of MTA3 in 90 patients with HCC via immunohistochemistry and explored MTA3 function via gene knockdown of MTA3. MTA3 was overexpressed in HCC cell nuclei and downregulated in HCC cell cytoplasm. The former finding correlated with metastasis (P = 0.010) and poor prognosis (P = 0.018). In addition, deleting MTA3 inhibited HCC cell growth, invasion, and metastasis in vitro, as shown in the colony formation, migration, and wound-healing assays. These results indicate that MTA3 is an oncogene of HCC, predicts poor prognosis of HCC, and may be a future marker of HCC treatment.