Treatment with iron chelators mimics hypoxic induction of the hypoxia inducible factor (HIF-1) which activates transcription by binding to hypoxia responsive elements (HRE). We investigated whether HIF-1 is involved in transcriptional activation of the transferrin receptor (TfR), a membrane protein which mediates cellular iron uptake, in response to iron deprivation. The transcription rate of t...

PURPOSE Aberrant activation of beta-catenin contributes to the malignant phenotype in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Hypoxia is also known to promote HCC invasion and metastasis. However, the association between beta-catenin and the proinvasive role of hypoxia remains unclear. We investigated the role of beta-catenin in the proinvasive consequences of hypoxia in HCC. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN We e...

Resistance to radiotherapy is a key limitation for the treatment of human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). To overcome this problem, we investigated the correlation between radioresistance and the human apurinic/apyrimidinic endonuclease (APE1), a bifunctional protein, which plays an important role in DNA repair and redox regulation activity of transcription factors. In the present study, we exa...

BACKGROUND UNC50 has long been recognized as a Golgi apparatus protein in yeast, and is involved in nicotinic receptor trafficking in Caenorhabditis elegans, but little is known about UNC50 gene function in human biology despite it being conserved from yeast to high eukaryotes. OBJECTIVES We investigated the relation between UNC50 and human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and the potential mec...

Transforming growth factor1 (TGF1)exerts potent immunosuppressive effects. In this study, we investigated the potential role of TGF1 produced by hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC)cell lines in immunosuppression mechanisms. Using the Mv1Lu cell-growth inhibition assay and an enzymelinked immunosorbent assay(ELISA), we detected optimal levels of TGF1 in the culture supernatants conditioned by the HCC ...

The erythropoietin (EPO) gene is one of the best examples of a mammalian gene controlled by oxygen tension. The DNA elements responsible for hypoxia-induced transcription consist of a short region of the proximal promoter and a <50-bp 3' enhancer. The elements act cooperatively to increase the transcriptional initiation rate approximately 100-fold in response to low oxygen tension in Hep3B cell...

Objectives. There are approximately 400 Hypericum species that grow naturally in different geographic origins of the world. Those species have been used in different folk medicines and screened for their biological activity including cancer. Our country is an important place for Hypericum species which are known as “kantaron, binbirdelik otu, kan otu, kılıç otu, yaraotu, kuzukıran”. We therefor...

BACKGROUND DNA methylation can influence histone modification and gene expression. The growth-arrest DNA damage inducible gene 45beta (Gadd45beta) has been reported as a potential diagnostic marker for aggressive hepatocellular carcinoma. In this study, the synergistic effect of the histone deacetylase inhibitor depsipeptide and the DNA methyltransferase inhibitor 5-azacytidine on the Gadd45bet...

Chemotherapy is the main approach for treating advanced and recurrent hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), but the clinical performance of chemotherapy is limited by a relatively low response rate, drug resistance, and adverse effects that severely affect the quality of life of patients. The aqueous extract of Solanum nigrum (AE-SN) is a crucial ingredient in some traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) ...