Chu Tian-Huei

We have a long-term interest in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) biology, when our team first established an immune-competent orthotopic HCC model by non-invasive ultrasound-guided hepatoma cells implantation (2010 BMC Gastroenterol). By switching to drug repurposing, our team is the first group to demonstrate that COX2/PGE2 signaling can promote hepatic cancer stem cells (CSCs) expansion, and COX2 inhibitor celecoxib can inhibit hepatic cancer stemness and tumor progression in the established orthotopic HCC model (2014 Oncotarget), and this paper has been highly cited by many studies with high quality. Because CSCs play a key role in chemoresistance, we investigated whether celecoxib can enhance the therapeutic efficacy of epirubicin for HCC treatment in the established hepatoma model (2018 Cancer Med), and the result showed that celecoxib can potentiate the therapeutic efficacy of epirubicin by hCSCs suppression and enhancing antitumor immunity (PD-L1 downregulation and CD8+ cytotoxic T cells CTLs increment in hepatoma). For the development of anti-CSCs agents, we found that microalgal extract from Coelastrella sp. F50 can specifically repressed hepatic CSCs in HCC cells and rat orthotopic hepatoma without cytotoxicity and adverse effect (2021 Phytother Res). Recently, we have identified leukocyte cell-derived chemotaxin 2 (LECT2) as a tumor suppressor and anti-stemness gene for HCC, and LECT2 gene delivery by adenovirus (Ad) significantly attenuated rat orthotopic HCC progression (2022 J Biol Chem). In inflammation biology, we have found that hepatoma-derived growth factor (HDGF) participates in Helicobacter pylori-induced neutrophils recruitment, chronic gastritis and gastric carcinogenesis (2019 Oncogene). Moreover, we also found that HDGF release from the damaged hepatocytes induces hepatic cytokine storm and neutrophils infiltration in the concanavalin A-induced acute hepatitis (2020 FASEB J). In the research for the identification of cancer biomarker, we demonstrated that exosomal miRNA such as miR-126 from serum can act as a non-invasive biomarker for the prediction of survival outcome in oral cancer (2021 Oral Oncol). In the bioinformatics analysis, we have identified delta-like 2 homologue (DLK2) as a novel prognostic biomarker for clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) (2022 Genes), and the expression of ST8 Alpha-N-Acetyl-Neuraminide Alpha-2,8-Sialyltransferase 6 (ST8SIA6) impacted the disease progression and survival outcome in colon cancer (2022 J Pers Med). Therefore, our research team is a highly competent group in pathological, oncological, and bioinformatics fields.