Exploring the mechanism of resistance to sorafenib in two hepatocellular carcinoma cell lines

Sorafenib has long been the only approved systemic therapy for advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), but most patients show primary or acquired drug resistance. In the present study, RNA was extracted from sorafenib-resistant and -sensitive clones of the HCC cell lines HepG2 and Huh7. Protein-protein interaction networks of the up- and down-regulated genes common to the two sorafenib-resistant cell lines were extracted and subjected to modular analysis in order to identify functional modules. Functional enrichment analysis showed the modules were involved in different biological processes and pathways. These results indicate that sorafenib resistance in HCC is complicated and heterogeneous. The potential regulators of each functional module, including transcription factors, microRNAs and long non-coding RNAs, were explored to construct a comprehensive transcriptional regulatory network related to sorafenib resistance in HCC. Our results provide new insights into sorafenib resistance of HCC at the level of transcriptional regulation.