Background: One of the acute hematologic malignancies is acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) that resulted in translocation of chromosomes 15 and 17, t (15; 17), and cessation in the maturation of myeloid cell line, and ultimate aggregation of neoplastic promyelocytes. Regarding that appetence of using herbal and marine medicine studies is increasing, and on the other hand, the features of Cassi...

The histone H3 lysine 36 dimethyl– specific demethylase KDM2b/JHDM1b, which is highly expressed in various human leukemias, was previously found to be important in regulating cell proliferation and cellular senescence. However, its functions in leukemia development and maintenance are unclear. Here, we demonstrate that ectopic expression of Kdm2b/Jhdm1b is sufficient to transform hematopoietic ...

Losses of heterozygosity involving chromosomes 9 and 10 are frequent events in the development and progression of cutaneous malignant melanoma. To investigate whether specifically deleted chromosomal regions encode tumor suppressor genes (TSGs), we introduced normal chromosome 10 into the tumorigenic human metastatic melanoma cell line UACC-903 by microcell fusion. In addition, two chromosome 9...

A combination of demethylating agents and histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACi) has been proposed as a novel therapy in leukemia and myelodysplasia. In HL-60 cells azacytidine (AZA) and Metacept-1 (MCT-1), a novel HDACi augmented inhibition of cell growth and increased apoptosis. In identifying a molecular mechanism responsible for these effects MCT-1 alone and in combination with AZA induced ...

In myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), the expression of the cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor p15ink4B (p15) is frequently decreased because of the aberrant methylation of the gene promoter; p15 is normally up-regulated during megakaryocytic differentiation. It was hypothesized that p15 methylation and deregulation of gene expression contribute to defective megakaryocytopoiesis in patients with MD...

Retinoic acid-induced terminal differentiation of myeloid cells involves the sequential regulation of cell cycle regulatory genes, coordinating the process of differentiation with arrest in the G0/G1 phase of the cell cycle. In this review we have summarized changes in expression and activity of cell cycle regulatory proteins associated with retinoic acid induced-growth arrest in human myeloid ...

The INK4/ARF locus encodes the key tumor suppressors, p15INK4b, p16INK4a and ARF, that together regulate the pRb and p53 major tumor suppressive networks. Given the importance of the products of the INK4/ARF locus in tumor suppression, transcription from the locus is tightly governed. Over the last decade, intense study to elucidate the regulation of this locus exposed that the genes encoded in...

Activin A, a multifunctional cytokine, plays an important role in hepatocyte growth suppression and is involved in liver size control. The present study was aimed to determine the cell location of activin A in the normal rat liver microenvironment and the contribution of activin A signaling to the hepatocyte phenotype to obtain insight into molecular mechanisms. Immunohistochemical and in situ ...