Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are ubiquitous environmental contaminants that can induce neurological defects in infants and children via placental and lactational transfer. To investigate the lactational transfer of PCBs and compare pharmacokinetic interactions among nonpregnant, lactating mice and suckling pups, quantitative time-course measurements of PCB accumulation in tissues were perfo...

Ethanol exposure during pregnancy is an established cause of birth defects, including neurodevelopmental defects. Most adult neurons are produced during the second trimester-equivalent period. The fetal neural stem cells (NSCs) that generate these neurons are an important but poorly understood target for teratogenesis. A cohort of miRNAs, including miR-153, may serve as mediators of teratogenes...

The epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is a crucial step in epithelial cancer invasion and metastasis. The aims of this study were to investigate and validate unidentified micro RNAs (miRNAs) that regulate EMT and to reveal their clinical relevance in epithelial cancer patients. By applying miRNA array screening in a natural epithelial-mesenchymal phenotype cell line pair and in a transfor...

Mammalian neural stem/progenitor cells (NSPCs) sequentially generate neurons and glia during CNS development. Here we identified miRNA-153 (miR-153) as a modulator of the temporal regulation of NSPC differentiation. Overexpression (OE) of miR-153 delayed the onset of astrogliogenesis and maintained NSPCs in an undifferentiated state in vitro and in the developing cortex. The transcription facto...

Persistent activation of Wnt/β-catenin signaling plays crucial roles in the development of human cancers, including hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Here, we performed a MicroRNA-based genetic screen, which revealed a novel diversion in β-catenin signaling triggered by MicroRNA-153 (miR-153). Overexpression of miR-153 was able to promote β-catenin transcriptional activity, leading to cell-cycle ...