Tumor relapse after chemotherapy typifies hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and is believed to be attributable to residual cancer stem cells (CSCs) that survive initial treatment. Chronic infection with hepatitis B virus (HBV) has long been linked to the development of HCC. Upon infection, random HBV genome integration can lead to truncation of hepatitis B virus X (HBx) protein at the C-terminus. The resulting C-terminal-truncated HBx (HBx-ΔC) was previously shown to confer enhanced invasiveness and diminished apoptotic response in HCC cells. Here, we found HBx-ΔC to promote the appearance of a CD133 liver CSC subset and confer cancer and stem cell-like features in HCC. HBx-ΔC was exclusively detected in HCC cell lines that were raised from patients presented with a HBV background with concomitant CD133 expression. Stable overexpression of the naturally occurring HBx-ΔC mutants, HBx-Δ14 or HBx-Δ35, in HCC cells Huh7 and immortalized normal liver cells MIHA resulted in a significant increase in the cells ability to self-renew, resist chemotherapy and targeted therapy, migrate and induce angiogenesis. MIHA cells with the mutants stably overexpressed also resulted in the induction of CD133, mediated through STAT3 activation. RNA sequencing profiling of MIHA cells with or without HBx-ΔC mutants stably overexpressed identified altered FXR activation. This, together with rescue experiments using a selective FXR inhibitor suggested that C-terminal truncated HBx can mediate cancer stemness via FXR activation. Collectively, we find C-terminal truncated HBx mutants to confer cancer and stem cell-like features in vitro and to play an important role in driving tumor relapse in HCC.
Keywords: HBx; HCC; RNA-Seq; cancer stem cells; tumor-initiating cells.