Purpose: To investigate how WW domain-containing oxidoreductase (WWOX) gene affects epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) of ovarian cancer (OC) cells, and the implication Elf5/Snail-1 pathway in process.
 Methods: This study employed female BALB/c nude mice aged 6 weeks. The expression levels E-cadherin, β-Catenin, N-cadherin, Vimentin, Snail1 Elf5 were assayed using qRT-PCR. protein WW...

Cyto-nuclear shuttling of β-catenin is at the epicenter of the canonical Wnt pathway and mutations in genes that result in excessive nuclear accumulation of β-catenin are the driving force behind the initiation of many cancers. Recently, Naked Cuticle homolog 1 (Nkd1) has been identified as a Wnt-induced intracellular negative regulator of canonical Wnt signaling. The current model suggests tha...

To study the role of WNT/β-catenin signaling in pancreatic adenocarcinoma, human BxPC-3 cell lines deficient of the central canonical WNT signaling protein β-catenin were established by using zinc-finger nuclease mediated targeted genomic disruption of the β-catenin gene (CTNNB1). Comparison of the global transcription levels in wild type cells with two β-catenin gene disrupted clones identifie...

p21-Activated kinase-1 (Pak1) is frequently upregulated in human breast cancer and is required for transformation of mammary epithelial cells by ErbB2. Here, we show that loss of Pak1, but not the closely related Pak2, leads to diminished expression of β-catenin and its target genes. In MMTV-ErbB2 transgenic mice, loss of Pak1 prolonged survival, and mammary tissues of such mice showed loss of ...

Accumulation of β-catenin in the nucleus is a hallmark of activation of the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway, which drives development of a large proportion of human cancers. However, the mechanism of β-catenin nuclear translocation has not been well investigated. Here we report biological significance of SMYD2-mediated lysine 133 (K133) methylation of β-catenin on its nuclear translocation. Kno...

BACKGROUND The β-catenin is an important effector in WNT/β-catenin signaling pathway, which exerts a crucial role in the development and progression of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Some researchers have suggested that the overexpression of β-catenin in cytoplasm and/or nucleus was closely correlated to metastasis, poor differentiation and malignant phenotype of HCC while some other researche...

Wnt signaling stabilizes β-catenin through the LRP6 receptor signaling complex, which antagonizes the β-catenin destruction complex. The Axin scaffold and associated glycogen synthase kinase-3 (GSK3) have central roles in both assemblies, but the transduction mechanism from the receptor to the destruction complex is contentious. We report that Wnt signaling is governed by phosphorylation regula...

INTRODUCTION: Bone remodeling, a dynamic process involving bone resorption followed by bone formation, takes place throughout life to maintain bone homeostasis. Osteoporosis pseudoglioma (OPPG) syndrome and high bone mass (HBM) syndrome are both mapped to the locus of Lrp5, a receptor for Wnt ligands in activation of β-catenin signaling (1). OPPG patients harbor inactivating mutations in the Lr...

Aberrant activation of β-catenin in the nucleus has been implicated in a variety of human cancers, but the fate of nuclear β-catenin is unknown. Here we demonstrate that the tripartite motif-containing protein 33 (TRIM33), acting as an E3 ubiquitin ligase, reduces the abundance of nuclear β-catenin protein. TRIM33-mediated β-catenin is destabilized and is GSK-3β or β-TrCP independent. TRIM33 in...

Urokinase plasminogen activator receptor (uPAR) is known to promote invasion, migration, and metastasis in cancer cells. In this report, we showed that ionizing radiation (IR)-induced uPAR has a role in WNT-β-catenin signaling and mediates induction of cancer stem cell (CSC)-like properties in medulloblastoma cell lines UW228 and D283. We observed that IR induced the expression of uPAR and CSC ...