Genistein (GEN), one of the soy isoflavones, exhibits protection against colon cancer. The WNT signaling pathway plays a critical role in both normal epithelial regeneration and tumorigenesis in human colon. In this study it was hypothesized that GEN regulates specific genes in the WNT signaling pathway. Colon cancer cell lines DLD-1, SW480, and SW1116 were treated with Novasoy or GEN for 4 day...

CpG islands are useful markers for genes in organisms containing 5-methylcytosine in their genomes. In addition, CpG islands located in the promoter regions of genes can play important roles in gene silencing during processes such as X-chromosome inactivation, imprinting, and silencing of intragenomic parasites. The generally accepted definition of what constitutes a CpG island was proposed in ...

Epigenetic silencing of tumor suppressor genes in human cancers is associated with aberrant methylation of promoter region CpG islands and local alterations in histone modifications. However, the mechanisms that drive these events remain unclear. Here, we establish an important role for histone H4 lysine 16 acetylation (H4K16Ac) and the histone acetyltransferase hMOF in the regulation of TMS1/A...

The tumor suppressor gene CDKN2/p16/MTSI,located on chromosome 9p21, is frequenfly inactivated in many human cancers through homozy gous deletion. Recently, we have reported another pathway of inactivation that Involves loss of transcription associated with de novo methylation of a 5' CpG island of CDKN2/p16 in lung cancers, gliomas, and head and neck squamous cell carcinomas. We now show that ...

One mechanism that could block transcription of the ER gene in ER-negative breast cancers without structural alteration in the gene is methylation of cytosine-rich areas, termed â€oeCpG islands,†• in the 5' regulatory region of the gene (9). CpG islands are always unmethylated in normal adult tissues, with the exception of tran scriptionally silent genes on the inactive X chromosome (9) and s...

Histone H2B lysine 120 mono-ubiquitination (H2Bub1) catalyzed by Rnf20 has been implicated in normal differentiation of embryonic stem (ES) and adult stem cells. However, it remains unknown how Rnf20 is recruited to its specific target chromosomal loci for the establishment of H2Bub1. Here, we reveal that Fbxl19, a CxxC domain-containing protein, promotes H2Bub1 at the promoters of CpG island-c...

Background: There are challenging reports in the public health sphere regarding associations between oral contraceptive (OC) use and cancer risk. Methods: To evaluate possible effects of OCs on cancer susceptibility, we quantified of global 5-methyl cytosine (5-mC) levels and assessed methylation patterns of CpG islands of two key tumor suppressor genes, APC1 and ESR1, in serum of users by enzy...

An essential issue derived from the sequencing of the human and other genomes is the identification of gene regulatory elements. Using in vivo footprinting and expression analysis, here we show that mouse and human CpG island promoters at homologous genes have a completely different organization in terms of size and binding of transcription factors. Despite these species-specific differences, a...

Inactivation of tumor-related genes by promoter hypermethylation is a common epigenetic event in the development of variety of tumors. Dermo1 (also called twist2) is a novel cancer-related gene which belongs to the basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) transcription factor family. Herein, we report that dermo1 expression was sporadically abrogated in human cancer cells by transcriptional silencing asso...