INTRODUCTION Runt-related transcription factor 2 (RUNX2) is a transcription factor that is indispensable for bone and tooth development. Smad ubiquitylation regulatory factor-1 (SMURF1) promotes RUNX2 degradation and negatively regulates osteoblast differentiation, whereas RUNX2 activates SMURF1 transcription in osteoblasts. However, the relationship between RUNX2 and SMURF1 in tooth developmen...

Altered gene expression in tumors can be caused by copy number alterations to DNA or mutation affecting coding or regulatory regions of genes. However, epigenetic events may also influence gene expression. Malignant cells can show major disruptions in DNA methylation profiles, which are manifested as aberrant hypermethylation or as hypomethylation of gene promoters, as well as global genomic hy...

Pancreatic cancer exhibits the worst prognostic outcome among human cancers. Recently, we have described that depletion of RUNX2 enhances gemcitabine (GEM) sensitivity of p53-deficient pancreatic cancer AsPC-1 cells through the activation of TAp63-mediated cell death pathway. These findings raised a question whether RUNX2 silencing could also improve GEM efficacy on pancreatic cancer cells bear...

The development of T cells in the thymus is regulated by a series of stage-specific transcription factors. Deregulated expression of these factors can lead to alterations in thymocyte development with the production of aberrant cell subsets and predispose to tumor formation. The three genes of the Runx family are multilineage regulators of differentiation that have been reported to be expressed...

RUNX2 is an essential transcription factor required for skeletal development and cartilage formation. Haploinsufficiency of RUNX2 leads to cleidocranial displaysia (CCD) a skeletal disorder characterised by gross dysgenesis of bones particularly those derived from intramembranous bone formation. A notable feature of the RUNX2 protein is the polyglutamine and polyalanine (23Q/17A) domain coded b...

Glucose intolerance seen in metabolic disorders, such as type II diabetes, is commonly associated with improper execution of the insulin signaling pathway, as well as an imbalance of bone and fat tissues, such that a gain in adipose tissue occurs at the expense of bone loss. Fat-producing adipocytes and bone-forming osteoblasts stem from a common mesenchymal progenitor cell. Runx2 positively re...

Introduction: Many inherited or trauma-induced conditions, such as cleidocranial dysplasia or non-union fractures, result from inadequate bone formation [1]. Perhaps providing insight into such clinical maladies, bone formation was lost during evolution. Chondrichthyes, fish whose internal skeleton is entirely cartilaginous, evolved from an ancestral vertebrate population that possessed bone. W...

We have previously demonstrated that glutamate (Glu) suppresses cellular proliferation toward self-renewal through a mechanism associated with the depletion of intracellular GSH after promoting the retrograde operation of the bidirectional cystine/Glu antiporter in undifferentiated osteoblastic MC3T3-E1 cells. In this study, we investigated the expression profile of the xCT subunit of the antip...