Aims To clarify the clinical implications and functional role of the alanine-glyoxylate aminotransferase 2-like 1 (AGXT2L1) gene in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

Methods and results We confirmed that AGXT2L1 was down-regulated in liver cancer samples by immunohistochemical (IHC) staining. We also demonstrated that this down-regulation was associated with several clinicopathological features such as alpha fetoprotein (AFP) serum level and T stage. Furthermore, we showed with Kaplan-Meier analysis that expression of AGXT2L1 in tumour samples was significantly correlated with patient prognosis. The bioinformatic tool indicated that AGXT2L1 plays a role in the lipid metabolic process of HCC tissue, while siRNA silenced the expression of AGXT2L1 in HCC 97H and LM3 cells, confirming that down-regulation of AGXT2L1 promotes the lipogenesis of cancer cells.

Conclusions For the first time, we have shown that AGXT2L1 is down-regulated in HCC and its low expression indicates a poor prognosis. Our findings also demonstrated that AGXT2L1 is a crucial gene in the abnormal lipogenesis of HCC tissue.