Zeitschrift für Proteomik und Bioinformatik
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Quantitative Profiling of Histone H3 Methylation in Human Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Jiajia Chen, Guoquan Yan, Fang Wang, Xuefei Yin, Hong Jin and Peng-yuan Yang

Alterations of epigenetics including DNA methylation and histone modifications play crucial roles in both initiation and progression of certain types of cancers. Abnormal histone modifications identified within these tumors represent potential biomarkers and therapeutic pathways. In this study, two different types of human hepatocellular carcinoma cell lines HepG2 and MHCC97-H with distinct metastasis capability are used to investigate the association of liver metastasis with cellular histone modification levels. In the HepG2 and MHCC97-H cells, 17 types of histone H3 modification corresponding to methylation are quantitatively profiled with LC coupled to high resolution mass spectrometry. Compared to HepG2 cells without metastasis capability, the combinatorial histone peptides of K9me1K14ac and K9me0K14ac in malignant MHCC97-H cells are found to be significantly down regulated, while the level of H3K9me3 and H3K27me2 are greatly increased. Overall these data provide novel insights into the histone methylation regulatory mechanism in liver metastasis and reveal the epigenetic pathway for HCC disease development.