BACKGROUND UROtsa is an authentic, immortalized human urothelial cell line that is used to study the effects of metals and other toxic substances, mostly in the context of bladder cancer carcinogenesis. Unusual properties on the molecular level of a provided UROtsa cell line stock prompted us to verify its identity. METHODS UROtsa cell line stocks from different sources were tested on several...

Obesity and the related metabolic abnormalities are associated with increased risk of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Malfunctioning of retinoid X receptor (RXR) a due to phosphorylation by Ras/ MAPK also plays a critical role in liver carcinogenesis. In the present study, we examined the effects of acyclic retinoid (ACR), which targets RXRa, on the development of diethylnitrosamine (DEN)-induc...

The unique t(15;17) of acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) retinoid response elements (RAREs). This leads to a dominant negative block of transcription from RAREs that is dosefuses the PML gene with the retinoic acid receptor a (RARa) gene. Although retinoic acid (RA) inhibits cell growth and dependent and not relieved by RA. An unrearranged RARa engineered with this mutation also lost ligand bi...

Purpose:The aimof this studywas to investigate thepromoter hypermethylation asdiagnosticmarkers to detectmalignant prostate cells and as prognosticmarkers to predict the clinical recurrence of prostate cancer. ExperimentalDesign:DNAwas isolated fromprostate cancer andnormal adjacent tissues. After bisulfite conversion, methylation of 14,495 genes was evaluated using the Methylation27 microarray...

BACKGROUND The clinical success of the nucleoside analogs 5-aza-cytidine (5-azaC) and 5-aza-2'deoxycytidine (5-aza-dC) as DNA methyltransferase (DNMT) inhibitors has spurred interest in the development of non-nucleoside inhibitors with improved pharmacologic and safety profiles. Because DNMT catalysis features attack of cytosine bases by an enzyme thiol group, we tested whether disulfiram (DSF)...

We studied promoter methylation (PM) of 11 genes in Peripheral Blood Lymphocytes (PBLs) and tissues of hepatitis C virus (HCV) associated hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and chronic hepatitis (CH) Egyptian patients. The present study included 31 HCC with their ANT, 38 CH and 13 normal hepatic tissue (NHT) samples. In all groups, PM of APC, FHIT, p15, p73, p14, p16, DAPK1, CDH1, RARβ, RASSF1A, O(...

Epigenetic silencing by promoter methylation of genes associated with cancer initiation and progression is a hallmark of tumour cells. As a consequence, testing for DNA methylation biomarkers in plasma or other body fluids shows great promise for detection of malignancies at early stages and/or for monitoring response to treatment. However, DNA from normal leukocytes may contribute to the DNA i...

Retinoic acid (RA), an active derivative of the liposoluble vitamin A (retinol), acts as an important signaling molecule during embryonic development, regulating phenomenons as diverse as anterior-posterior axial patterning, forebrain and optic vesicle development, specification of hindbrain rhombomeres, pharyngeal arches and second heart field, somitogenesis, and differentiation of spinal cord...

Oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OPSCC) is associated with human papillomavirus (HPV) in a proportion of tumors. HPV-positive OPSCC is considered a distinct molecular entity with a prognostic advantage compared to HPV-negative cases. Silencing of cancer-related genes by DNA promoter hypermethylation may play an important role in the development of OPSCC. Hence, we examined promoter methyl...

Background The improvement of in vitro maturation (IVM) protocols through the supplementation with different molecules has become an alternative to increase the culture medium efficiency. Tretinoin (TTN, all-trans retinoic acid, ATRA), is an active metabolite of vitamin A [1], that mediates cell proliferation, cell differentiation, and embryonic development process. In in vitro production embry...