In 2023, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared cancer as the second leading cause of death in the United States.
Globally, liver cancer is deemed one of the most commonly diagnosed. Hepatitis B is a severe liver disease caused by a Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection; a chronic HBV infection increases the likelihood of developing hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), the most common form of liver cancer. Long noncoding RNAs (IncRNAs) are RNA transcripts classified by their greater than 200 nucleotide length and ack of protein-coding abilities. Although once believed to have no vital cellular function, they are now known to play critical roles in HCC development. We determined that IncRNA FAM99A is highly expressed in healthy hepatocytes but of negligible levels in liver cancer HepG2 cells and HCCs, thus hypothesized to function as a tumor suppressor. We used western blotting to assess expression of proteins that regulate apoptosis, such as Bax, Bcl-2, and cleaved caspase-3, when FAM99A was overexpressed in transformed liver cell lines, to determine if FAM99A affects apoptotic signaling pathways. A better understanding of FAM99A could provide further insight on HCC development and defining novel therapeutic targets.
