The occurrence of WDTCs characterized by the absence of Gal-3 expression is rather uncommon and it might be related to the occurrence of a more aggressive phenotype. We do not know the reason why Gal-3 is not expressed in these lesions and do not have any data so far. We can only speculate that a yet-to-bediscovered specific genetic damage might affect LGALS3 gene. It is interesting to note that HIPK2 loss appears to be correlated to the presence of malignancy with more sensitivity, compared to Gal-3 overexpression. However, in four cases HIPK2 was detectable, at low level, in the presence of Gal-3 overexpression, indicating that mechanisms that do not imply HIPK2 downregulation, but affect its activity or sub-cellular localization, could be involved in thyroid tumourigenesis. One may hypothesize that the combination of analysis of these two protein markers, namely HIPK2 and Gal-3, would be helpful in ameliorating the preoperative FPL 64176 recognition of thyroid cancer. Finally, allelic loss at the HIPK2 gene locus was found in 37.5% of PTCs. Therefore, we may speculate that genetic events, leading to loss of one allele at the HIPK2 gene locus, may account for more than one third of the cases. In this regard, it is relevant to note that the HIPK2 gene locus is located in a region where the presence of fragile sites has been reported. It is likely that other events, either at the transcriptional and post-transcriptional or at the translational and post-translational levels may explain why HIPK2 mRNA and protein are lost, in the absence of LOH. The incidence of hepatocelluar carcinoma is currently the fifth highest in solid tumor and is the third leading cause of Indatraline hydrochloride cancer death worldwide, accounting for approximately one million deaths annually. Geographic areas with highest frequency are located in Africa and Eastern Asia. Most cases of HCC are attributed to either chronic viral hepatitis infection or cirrhosis. Unfortunately, the survival rate of HCC patients remains poor despite recent advances in medical treatment and surgical techniques. More seriously, the mortality of HCC is still growing with an increasing trend of new occurrence. The overwhelming majority of human transcriptome was confirmed to be noncoding genes. Over the past decade, those abundant transcripts have been declared to have important regulatory potential in biological processes.