Increased expression of nucleophosmin/B23 in hepatocellular carcinoma and correlation with clinicopathological parameters

Nucleophosmin (NPM, B23, numatrin, NO38) is an abundant nucleolar phosphoprotein involved in multiple cellular functions. Previous evidence indicates that high-level expression of NPM causes uncontrolled cell growth and suggests that NPM may have oncogenic potential. In this study, we examined NPM expression in 103 paired cases of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), 12 cases of hepatic focal nodular hyperplasia, 17 cases of liver tissue adjacent to a hepatic haemangioma, and series of array tissues from normal human organs and malignancies using a monoclonal antibody against NPM and reverse transcription–PCR techniques, Western blot analysis, immunohistochemistry, and immunocytofluorescence. Our data indicated that NPM expression was significantly higher in HCC than in the non-malignant hepatocytes ( P