Correlation and prognostic significance of beta-galactoside alpha-2,6-sialyltransferase and serum monosialylated alpha-fetoprotein in hepatocellular carcinoma

Figure 1 Electrophoresis of RT-PCR products amplified from the total RNA preparations of the tumor (T) and non-tumor liver (NT) tissues from HCC patients. For both tumor and non-tumor total RNA preparations, the RT-PCR products corresponding to ST6Gal I and β-Actin DNA showing the expected sizes (421 bp and 305 bp respectively) were obtained. Commercially available human normal liver cDNA was used as the positive control. Similar DIG-labeled RT-PCR products with the same sizes were obtained when DIG-dNTPs were used.

Figure 2 The frequency of poorly differentiated tumors among the 19 HCC patients with different relative tumor ST6Gal I activity or with different preoperative serum msAFP percentage. Differences between the study groups were tested by Fisher’s exact test. ¹P = 0.045.

Figure 3 Survival curves of 19 patients with operable hepatocellular carcinoma after surgical resection according to relative tumor ST6Gal I activity (A) and preoperative serum msAFP percentage (B). Censored cases (O).