C/Ebp Beta Enhances Efficacy Of Sorafenib In Hepatoblastoma

Hepatoblastoma (HB) is the predominant hepatic neoplasm in infants and young children. Sorafenib has been used to treat adult and pediatric hepatocellular carcinoma. However, efficacy of monotherapy of sorafenib in HB is not sustained. In this study, we tested a possible combinatory therapy of sorafenib with the CCAAT/enhancer-binding proteins (C/EBP) overexpression in HB cell line. Firstly, we evaluated the expression level of C/EBP beta in the patients with HB by analyzing The Cancer Genome Atlas data. Lower level of C/EBP beta was observed in tumor tissues in comparison with matched normal tissues. Next, we observed that combination of sorafenib and C/EBP beta overexpression led to dramatic growth and migration inhibition of live tumor cells which implied promising probability for clinical trial. Mechanistically, C/EBP beta which can be downregulated by Ras v12, augmented messenger RNA and protein levels of p53. These data suggested that a combination of sorafenib and C/EBP beta overexpression inhibited tumor growth synergistically and provided a promising approach to treat HB.