The association between the temporal activation of Wnt/β-catenin pathway and the spontaneous hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) development in Farnesoid X receptor (FXR) knockout mice is not well understood. We found that Huh7 cells depleted with FXR by RNAi showed enhanced cell growth, migration and invasion in vitro and accelerated tumor xenografts formation in nude mice. And these phenotypes wer...

Understanding pathways controlling cardiac development may offer insights that are useful for stem cell-based cardiac repair. Developmental studies indicate that the Wnt/beta-catenin pathway negatively regulates cardiac differentiation, whereas studies with pluripotent embryonal carcinoma cells suggest that this pathway promotes cardiogenesis. This apparent contradiction led us to hypothesize t...

Somitogenesis is thought to be controlled by a segmentation clock, which consists of molecular oscillators in the Wnt3a, Fgf8 and Notch pathways. Using conditional alleles of Ctnnb1 (beta-catenin), we show that the canonical Wnt3a/beta-catenin pathway is necessary for molecular oscillations in all three signaling pathways but does not function as an integral component of the oscillator. Small, ...

The RET receptor tyrosine kinase is a member of the cadherin superfamily and plays a pivotal role in cell survival, differentiation and proliferation. Currently, 12 ret/ptc chimeric oncogenes, characterized by the fusion between the intracellular domain of RET and different activating genes, which can cause ligand-independent dimerization and constitutive activation, have been described. β-cate...

Mutations and deregulation of adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) and beta-catenin are implicated in specific cancers of the pancreas, but the role of Wnt pathway in normal pancreas development and homeostasis is unknown. This article reports a comprehensive investigation of the activity and the role of the Wnt pathway in pancreas organogenesis. We have used two reporter lines to monitor canonical...

Cantharidin is an active constituent of mylabris, a traditional Chinese medicine, and presents strong anticancer activity in various cell lines. Cantharidin is a potent and selective inhibitor of serine/threonine protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A). Our previous studies revealed the prospect of application of cantharidin, as well as other PP2A inhibitors, in the treatment of pancreatic cancer. Howeve...

Successful implantation depends on two aspects: blastocyst invasion ability and endometrial receptivity. β1,4-GalT-I plays an important role in fertilization, cell adhesion, neurite growth and tumor cell migration process. To explore the impact of β1,4-GalT-I in the process of embryo implantation and study on regulation of β1,4-GalT-I expression by Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway. We establishe...

Adult colorectal epithelium undergoes continuous renewal and maintains homeostatic balance through regulated cellular proliferation, differentiation, and migration. The canonical Wnt signaling pathway involving the transcriptional co-activator β-catenin is important for colorectal development and normal epithelial maintenance, and deregulated Wnt/β-catenin signaling has been implicated in color...

Benign airway stenosis is a clinical challenge because of recurrent granulation tissues. Our previous study proved that a Chinese drug, β-elemene, could effectively inhibit the growth of fibroblasts cultured from hyperplastic human airway granulation tissues, which could slow down the progression of this disease. The purpose of this study is to find out the mechanism. We cultured fibroblasts fr...

Abstract Background Proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9) is a protein that affects cholesterol homeostasis. Recent research has found PCSK9 various effects on the heart are unrelated to LDL regulation. The Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway plays crucial role during development, and it re-activated in response cardiac injury. Low-density lipoprotein receptor-related proteins 5 (LR...