Aneuploidy is the most common characteristic of human cancer cells. It also causes genomic instability, which is involved in the initiation of cancer development. Various lines of evidence indicate that nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide(P)H quinone oxidoreductase 1 (NQO1) plays an important role in cancer prevention, but the molecular mechanisms underlying this effect have not yet been fully el...

Ornithine decarboxylase (ODC), a key enzyme in the biosynthesis of polyamines, is a very labile protein. ODC is a homodimeric enzyme that undergoes ubiquitin-independent proteasomal degradation via direct interaction with antizyme, a polyamine-induced protein. Binding of antizyme promotes the dissociation of ODC homodimers and marks ODC for degradation by the 26S proteasomes. We describe here a...

NAD(P)H:quinone oxidoreductase 1 (NQO1) is a cytosolic protein that catalyzes metabolic detoxification of quinones and protects cells against redox cycling and oxidative stress. NQO1-null mice deficient in NQO1 protein showed increased sensitivity to 7,12-dimethylbenz(a)anthracene- and benzo(a)pyrene-induced skin carcinogenesis. In the present studies, we show that benzo(a)pyrene metabolite ben...

NAD(P)H:quinone oxidoreductase 1(-/-) (NQO1(-/-)), NQO1(+/-) along with NRH:quinone oxidoreductase 2(-/-) (NQO2(-/-)), and wild-type (WT) mice were exposed to five once weekly doses of mitomycin C. The mice were euthanized 15 weeks after the first dose. Blood cell counts and histologic analyses were done. WT and NQO2(-/-) mice showed hypocellularity and a significant increase in adipocytes in b...

Protein degradation is an essential and highly regulated process. The proteasomal degradation of the tumor suppressors p53 and p73 is regulated by both polyubiquitination and by an ubiquitin-independent process. Here, we show that this ubiquitin-independent process is mediated by the 20S proteasomes and is regulated by NQO1. NQO1 physically interacts with p53 and p73 in an NADH-dependent manner...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES We examined common polymorphisms in the genes for glutathione S-transferase (GST), cytochrome P450 (CYP), quinone oxoreductase (NQO1), methylene tetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR), and thymidylate synthetase (TYMS) and the role of gender associated with the susceptibility to de novo acute leukemia (AL). DESIGN AND METHODS We conducted a case-control study analyzing t...

Mucous cell metaplasia (MCM) and neutrophil-predominant airway inflammation are pathological features of chronic inflammatory airway diseases. A signature feature of MCM is increased expression of a major respiratory tract mucin, MUC5AC. Neutrophil elastase (NE) upregulates MUC5AC in primary airway epithelial cells by generating reactive oxygen species, and this response is due in part to upreg...

Lung adenocarcinoma has replaced squamous cell lung carcinoma as the most frequent histological subtype in lung cancers. However, genetic factors that affect cancer susceptibility are much less understood in adenocarcinoma than in squamous cell carcinoma. In this study, polymorphisms in five genes involved in the metabolism of carcinogens or in the repair of damaged DNA in lung cells, NQO1-Pro1...