Tumorigenicity and metastatic activity can be visually monitored in cancer cells that were labelled with stable fluorescence. The aim was to establish and validate local and distant spread of subcutaneously previously injected fluorescence transduced human tongue cancer cell lines of epithelial and mesenchymal phenotype in nude mice. A total of 32 four-week-old male athymic Balb/c nude mice wer...

Previous cybrid studies aimed at demonstrating cytoplasmic suppression of tumorigenicity have been generally inconclusive because of (a) the use of mutagens or carcinogens to introduce nuclear-coded and cytoplasmic-coded genetic markers and (b) dilution of putative cytoplasmic suppressors with tumorigenic cytoplasm of whole cells used in the cybrid construction. We have circumvented these poten...

Tumorigenicity of human pluripotent stem cells is a major threat limiting their application in cell therapy protocols. It remains unclear, however, whether suppression of tumorigenic potential can be achieved without critically affecting pluripotency. A previous study has identified hyperexpressed genes in cancer stem cells, among which is E2F2, a gene involved in malignant transformation and s...

Interleukin 8 (IL-8) is mitogenic and chemotactic for endothelial cells. Within a neoplasm, IL-8 is secreted by inflammatory and neoplastic cells. The highly tumorigenic and highly metastatic human transitional cell carcinoma (TCC) cell line 253J B-V overexpresses IL-8 relative to the nontumorigenic and nonmetastatic 253J-P cell line. To determine whether IL-8 expression regulates tumorigenicit...

We have investigated the influence of Ki-ras oncogene on Met/hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) receptor signaling in human carcinoma cells. The model system used in these studies included the DLD-1 colon cancer cell line with a mutated Ki-ras allele, and the DKO-4 cell line generated from DLD-1, with its mutant Ki-ras allele inactivated by targeted disruption. These cell lines were transduced with...

To examine whether the expression of retinoblastoma (RB) protein could mediate tumor suppression in a lung carcinoma cell line carrying multiple genetic defects, we transfected the Rb gene into a non-small cell lung cancer cell line with absent RB protein. We observed that the stable expression of a functional RB product was associated with a decreased efficiency of soft agar cloning and partia...

Mammalian-enabled (MENA) protein is an actin-regulatory protein that influences cell motility and adhesion. It is known to play a role in tumorigenicity of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) but the underlying molecular mechanism remains unknown. This study aimed to investigate the oncogenic potential of MENA and its capacity to regulate cancer stem cell (CSC)-like phenotypes in HCC cells. Real-tim...

Delta-like 1 homolog (DLK1; Drosophila) is a hepatic stem/progenitor cell marker in fetal livers that plays a vital role in oncogenesis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The aim of this study is to investigate whether DLK1 could serve as a potential therapeutic target against cancer stem/progenitor cells of HCC. DLK1(+) and DLK1(-) cells were sorted by fluorescence-activated cell sorting and m...

Expression of the human IL-6 gene in EBV-immortalized normal human B lymphocytes following retroviral-mediated transduction rendered these cells highly tumorigenic in athymic mice. The tumors were lymphomas composed of the originally inoculated human lymphoblastoid cells. Co-injection of IL-6 expressing EBV-immortalized cells with IL-6 nonexpressing control cells resulted in increased tumorigen...

CDGSH iron sulfur domain 2 (CISD2) is localized in the outer mitochondrial membrane and mediates mitochondrial integrity and lifespan in mammals, but its role in cancer is unknown. In the current study, we reported that CISD2 mRNA and protein expression levels were significantly upregulated in gastric cancer cells compared to normal gastric epithelial cells (P < 0.001). Immunohistochemical anal...