MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a large family of post‑transcriptional regulators of gene expression that control a number of developmental and cellular processes in eukaryotic organisms and are ~23 nucleotides in length. miRNA‑122 is an abundant liver‑specific miRNA, implicated in fatty acid and cholesterol metabolism, as well as in hepatitis C viral replication and is frequently suppressed in primary ...

Hypoxia-inducible factor 1 (HIF-1) activates erythropoietin gene transcription in Hep3B cells subjected to hypoxia. HIF-1 activity is also induced by hypoxia in non-erythropoietin-producing cells, suggesting a more general regulatory role. We now report that RNAs encoding the glycolytic enzymes aldolase A (ALDA), phosphoglycerate kinase 1 (PGK1), and pyruvate kinase M were induced by exposure o...

Proton-coupled oligopeptide transporter 1 (PEPT1) is a membrane protein which expressed predominantly in intestine and recognized as the target of dietary nutrients (di/tripeptide) or peptidomimetic drug for delivery. The information on the existence of PEPT1 in carcinomas were limited. Our study aimed to investigate the expression profile and transport activity of PEPT1 both in human hepatocar...

The present study was carried out to evaluate the role of apoptotic proteins in REC-2006-mediated radiation protection in hepatoma cell lines. REC-2006 treatment 2 h before irradiation strongly inhibited the cleavage of ATM and PARP-1 in HepG2 cells. The expression of nuclear apoptosis inducing factor (AIF) was found to be more inhibited (~17%) in HepG2 cells in REC-2006 + radiation-treated gro...

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) affects a large population worldwide. DM is often considered as a syndrome of disordered glucose metabolism. Current conventional drug therapies for DM are usually insufficient and medicinal herbs with antihyperglycemic activities are increasingly sought by diabetic patients and health care professionals. Nerium Oleander (N.O.) is known to be effective in lowering ...

Targeting protein for Xenopus kinesin-like protein 2 (TPX2), a microtubule-associated protein, impacts spindle assembly in human cells. Several studies have demonstrated that TPX2 is overexpressed in different types of human cancers and promotes tumor growth and metastasis. In this study, we found that the expression level of TPX2 was obviously higher in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tissues t...

Soluble epoxide hydrolase (sEH) is an important pharmacological target because it metabolizes potent bioactive substrates, epoxyeicosatrienoinc acids (EETs) and other lipid epoxide. EETs have a variety of biological functions including angiogenesis and cancer metastasis. However, the regulation and physiological function of sEH is not well understood. In this study, we found that hypoxia signif...

Human primary hepatocytes are able to survive in a medium without glucose and arginine that is instead supplemented with galactose and ornithine (hepatocyte selection medium; HSM). This is because the cells produce glucose and arginine by the action of galactokinase (GALK) and ornithine carbamoyltransferase (OTC), respectively. It was expected that hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cells do not su...

Growth arrest DNA damage-inducible gene 45β (GADD45β), which influences cell growth, apoptosis and cellular response to DNA damage, is downregulated in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). S-adenosylmethionine (SAMe) serves as an essential methyl donor in multiple metabolic pathways and is a polyamine and glutathione (GSH) precursor. In this study, we assessed the roles of GADD45β and SAMe in cell s...

To elucidate how tumor cells produce energy in oxygen-depleted microenvironments, we studied the possibility of mitochondrial electron transport without oxygen. We produced well-controlled oxygen gradients (ΔO2) in monolayer-cultured cells. We then visualized oxygen levels and mitochondrial membrane potential (ΔΦm) in individual cells by using the red shift of green fluorescent protein (GFP) fl...