Flavopiridol, a synthetic flavone that inhibits tumor growth in vitro and in vivo, is a potent cyclin-dependent kinase (cdk) inhibitor presently in clinical trials. In the present study, the effect of 100-500 nM flavopiridol on a panel of non-small cell lung cancer cell lines was examined. All express a wild-type retinoblastoma susceptibility protein and lack p16INK4A, and only A549 cells are k...

A tissue-specific promoter can control downstream gene expression in tissues or organs. The human involucrin (hINV) promoter (pINV) that contains 2474 bp of hINV upstream sequence is able to regulate tissue-specific gene expression. This tissue specificity may be important for the prevention and treatment of human papilloma virus infections. pINV was cloned by polymerase chain reaction and the ...

Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is the sixth most prevalent cancer worldwide with about 600,000 new cases diagnosed in the last year. The incidence of human papillomavirus-positive head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HPV-positive HNSCC) has rapidly increased over the past 30 years prompting the suggestion that an epidemic may be on the horizon. Therefore, there is a clinical ne...

Viral oncoproteins E6/E7 play key oncogenic role in human papillomavirus (HPV)-mediated cervical carcinogenesis in conjunction with aberrant activation of cellular signaling events. GLI-signaling has been implicated in metastasis and tumor recurrence of cervical cancer. However, the interaction of GLI-signaling with HPV oncogenes is unknown. We examined this relationship in established HPV-posi...

High-risk human papillomaviruses (HPVs) encode two viral oncoproteins, E6 and E7, from a single bicistronic pre-mRNA containing three exons and two introns. Retention of intron 1 in the E6 coding region is essential for production of the full-length E6 oncoprotein. However, splicing of intron 1 is extremely efficient in cervical cancer cells, leading to the production of a spliced transcript, E...

Background: Hinokitiol (β-thujaplicin), isolated from the wood of Chamaecyparis taiwanensis, has a wide variety biological properties including anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial, and anti-tumor effects. Therefore, hinokitiol become frequent additive in oral other healthcare products. Objectives: Our goal was to determine activity on human papillomavirus (HPV) positive (n = 3) negative 2) cell l...

Production of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) for degradation of extracellular matrix is a vital step in cancer metastasis. We investigated the effects of HPV16 oncoproteins (16E6, 16E6*I and 16E7), either individually or combined, on the transcription of 7 MMPs implicated in cervical cancer invasiveness. The levels of 7 MMPs reported to be increased in cervical cancer were determined in C33A ...

Human papillomaviruses (HPV) are a group of strong human carcinogen viruses considered to be the fourth leading cause of mortality among women in the world. HPV is the most important cause of cervical cancer, which is the second most common cancer in women living in low and middle-income countries. To date, there is no effective cure for an ongoing HPV infection; therefore, it is required to in...

Studies have shown that wild-type hTERT protein can functionally replace the HPV16E6 protein, which cooperates with the viral E7 protein in the immortalization of primary keratinocytes. Previously, we made the surprising finding that catalytically inactive hTERT (hTERT), elongation-defective hTERT (hTERT-HA), and telomere recruitment-defective (hTERT N+T) also cooperate with E7 in cell immortal...