A different trend of heat shock proteins 90 mRNA and protein in hepatocellular carcinoma cell line-secreted extracellular vesicles.

Primary Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC) does not usually show anysymptoms at the early stage and the use of biomarkers is necessary to aidin diagnosis. Recently Extracellular Vesicles (EVs), submicron membrane-bound structures secreted from different cell types containing a wide variety ofbioactive molecules, have increased the attention in many cancers, includingHCC, becoming an auspicious candidate as biomarkers and therapy in thescenario of limited diagnostic and treatment option.Many indications have shown that heat shock proteins (Hsps) are importantmodulators in treatment resistance and invasion of HCC becoming attractivetherapeutic targets. In particular, Hsp90?/? isoforms have been found to playcritical roles in regulating the proliferation, apoptosis, and metastasis of tumorcells, suggesting for these proteins a role as targets for modern anticancertherapies. The study aimedto verify the presence of Hsp90?/? in EVs secretedby an HCC tumor cell line (HepG2) and by a non-tumorigenic hepatocyte cellline (WRL68), both at protein and mRNA levels, and to analyze their expressionvariations. The result showed that Hsp90s are transported by the EVs asprotein but not at the mRNA level. To build new therapeutic targets using EVsor other organelles as performed on exosomes in recent studies, it is essentialto evaluate the action at the pre or post-transcriptional level given their differentbehavior in transporting proteins or mRNA