Abstract: Objective： To study the expression of hypoxia induced factor-1α (HIF-1α) and P-gp and their correlation in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Methods： Immunohistochemistry was used to detect the expression of HIF-1α and P-gp in thirty-two HCC samples and twenty noncancerous liver samples. If the expressions of both HIF-1α and P-gp were positive in the same case, another slide was used to detect the co-expression of the two. Results： The positive expressions of HIF-1α (58.33%) and P-gp (77.78%) in HCC were significantly higher than those in the non-cancerous group (P＜0.001). The expression of HIF-1α was positively correlated with the expression of P-gp (r=0.388, P＜0.05). The co-expression rate was 61.1%. Conclusion: The expression of HIF-1α and P-gp has a close correlation in HCC, and HIF-1α may induce multi-drug resistance by up-regulating the expression of P-gp, and it may become a novel marker to evaluate and reverse multi-drug resistance.

Key words: Liver neoplasms, P-glycoprotein, Hypoxia-inducible factor-1α