TY - JOUR T1 - Monitoring of Heat Shock Response and Phenotypic Changes in Hepatocellular Carcinoma After Heat Treatment JF - Anticancer Research JO - Anticancer Res SP - 5393 LP - 5401 DO - 10.21873/anticanres.13733 VL - 39 IS - 10 AU - RYOSUKE ZAIMOKU AU - TOMOHARU MIYASHITA AU - HIDEHIRO TAJIMA AU - HIROYUKI TAKAMURA AU - AI HARASHIMA AU - SEIICHI MUNESUE AU - YASUHIKO YAMAMOTO AU - ITASU NINOMIYA AU - SACHIO FUSHIDA AU - KENICHI HARADA Y1 - 2019/10/01 UR - http://ar.iiarjournals.org/content/39/10/5393.abstract N2 - Background/Aim: Local recurrence of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) after thermal coagulation therapy may be associated with an aggressive phenotypic change. This study focused on the thermal effects on HCC cells and evaluated the heat shock response and phenotypic changes after heat treatment. Materials and Methods: HepG2 and HuH7 cells were used. After heat treatment at 37-50°C for 5-30 min, we assessed their survival rate, induction of heat shock protein (HSP)70 promoter, proliferation rate, induction of the epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) and cancer stem cell (CSC)-related markers. Results: Induction of HSP70 promoter per surviving cell was maximized after 10 min of heat treatment at 48°C. Induction of EMT and CSC-related markers was also observed. Conclusion: Sub-lethal heat treatment causes large heat shock response to surviving HCC cells and induce EMT-like and CSC-like phenotypic changes that might contribute to increased aggressiveness. ER -