The acute transcriptomic and proteomic response of HC-04 hepatoma cells to hepatocyte growth factor and its implications for plasmodium falciparum sporozoite invasion

Abstract

The routine study of human malaria liver-stage biology in vitro is hampered by low infection efficiency of human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) lines (>0.1%), poor understanding of steady-state HCC biology, and lack of appropriate tools for trace sample analysis. HC-04 is the only HCC that supports complete development of human malaria parasites. We hypothesized that HCCs are in various intermediate stages of the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and HC-04s retain epithelial characteristics that permit infection. We developed a facile analytical approach to test this hypothesis viz. the HC-04 response to hepatocyte growth factor (HGF). We used online twodimensional liquid chromatograph..