cancers Review The Roles of Protein Tyrosine Phosphatases in Hepatocellular Carcinoma Yide Huang 1,2, Yafei Zhang 1, Lilin Ge 2,3, Yao Lin 1,* ID and Hang Fai Kwok 2,* ID 1 Provincial University Key Laboratory of Cellular Stress Response and Metabolic Regulation, College of Life Sciences, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou 350117, China;
[email protected] (Y.H.);
[email protected] (Y.Z.) 2 Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Macau, Avenida de Universidade, Taipa, Macau, China;
[email protected] 3 Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Functional Substance of Chinese Medicine, School of Pharmacy, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing 210023, China * Correspondence:
[email protected] (Y.L.);
[email protected] (H.F.K.) Received: 8 January 2018; Accepted: 15 March 2018; Published: 20 March 2018 Abstract: The protein tyrosine phosphatase (PTP) family is involved in multiple cellular functions and plays an important role in various pathological and physiological processes. In many chronic diseases, for example cancer, PTP is a potential therapeutic target for cancer treatment. In the last two decades, dozens of PTP inhibitors which specifically target individual PTP molecules were developed as therapeutic agents. Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignant tumors and is the second most lethal cancer worldwide due to a lack of effective therapies. Recent studies have unveiled both oncogenic and tumor suppressive functions of PTP in HCC. Here, we review the current knowledge on the involvement of PTP in HCC and further discuss the possibility of targeting PTP in HCC. Keywords: protein-tyrosine phosphatase inhibitors; hepatocellular carcinoma; signaling pathways; therapeutic targets 1.