Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is one of the most fatal cancers worldwide. However, the etiology is complex and unclear. 3q26 harboring abundant oncogenes have been identified as the loci of ESCC susceptibility. In the present study, we examined whether CNVs on 3q26 would be associated with the risk, TNM stage and prognosis of ESCC.

C/EBPα plays an important role in the modulation of cell proliferation, differentiation or apoptosis in various tissues. Most recently, reduced expression of C/EBPα and growth inhibitory effect was found in primary mammary carcinomas. However, the underlying mechanism is still not fully aware. Here, we firstly identified miR-134 as a target of C/EBPα in MCF7 breast cancer cell lines. C/EBPα overexpression promoted miR-134 expression, causing suppression of apoptosis- protective genes CREB and Bcl-2, and resulted in the proliferation inhibition of MCF7 cells. Moreover, anti-miR-134 rescued the proliferation inhibition of MCF7 cells and the suppression of anti-apoptotic genes CREB and Bcl-2 caused by C/EBPα overexpression. Collectively, C/EBPα inhibited cell growth in breast cancer cells via a novel pathway miR-134/CREB.

The aim is to discuss the relationship of Line-1 methylation and the MDR1 expression in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC).

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignant tumors worldwide. It is important for HCC cells to resist to apoptosis caused by adverse energy pressure in microenvironment during the HCC tumorigenesis. HRP-3, a member of hepatoma-derived growth factor (HDGF)-related proteins (HRP) family, was shown to be highly up-regulated in HCC tissues and play an important role in HCC pathogenesis based on our previous research. The aim of the study was to investigate the HRP-3's role in HCC cells endurance against energy pressure.

The present study was designed to explore the clinical values of microRNA-129 (miR-129) expression in peripheral blood mononuclear cells for prostate cancer patients and the role of miR-129 in the proliferation of prostate cancer.

Regulator of chromosome condensation 1 (RCC1) is a critical cell cycle regulator. We firstly identified RCC1 gene hypermethylation in gastric tumor tissues using the differential methylation hybridization (DMH) microarray, but the role of RCC1 in the pathogenesis of gastric carcinoma is largely unknown.

As one of the most popular and deadly malignant tumors, gastric cancer still has difficulty in early-diagnosis. Recently the level of circulated DNA related with tumors can be used for diagnosis. MicroRNA-421 (miR-421) has been found to be up-regulated in tumor cells. Whether peripheral miR-421 can be used as a marker for diagnosis of gastric carcinoma, however, remains unclear. The expression level of miR-421 in both gastric cancer and normal people were firstly quantified. We then performed in vitro transfection of gastric carcinoma cell line to potentiate or silence miR-421 level. Cell apoptosis and apoptotic protein levels were quantified by flow cytometry and Western blotting, respectively. MiR-421 level in the peripheral blood of gastric cancer patients was significantly elevated. In gastric cancer cell line, the up-regulation of miR-421 significantly inhibited cell apoptosis. The silencing of miR-421 promoted cell apoptosis. Such anti-apoptotic role of miR-421 was accomplished by inhibiting caspase 3, up-regulating Bcl-2 and inhibiting Bax. MiR-421 was up-regulated in both tumor tissue and peripheral blood, and can modulate cell apoptosis. Circulated miR-421 can work as a serological marker for early diagnosis of gastric cancer.

As one common malignant bone cancer, osteosarcoma is mainly occurred in young people with increasing incidences. Current treatment of osteosarcoma includes surgery and chemo-/radio-therapy. Due to the unclear pathogenesis mechanism, the overall treatment efficacy is still not satisfactory. As anti-apoptotic molecule Bcl-2 has been suggested to be related with osteosarcoma and is regulated by miR-143, we thus investigated the correlation between miR-143 and Bcl-2 in osteosarcoma patients, in an attempt to elucidate the role of miR-143 in cancer occurrence. Real-time fluorescent RT-PCR was used to quantify expression levels of miR-143 and Bcl-2 from a total of 5 osteosarcoma patients, along with protein contents determination by Western blotting. In vitro study was also performed to detect Bcl-2 expression and cell apoptosis via silencing or over-expressing miR-143 in cultured osteosarcoma cells. MiR-143 showed down-regulation in osteosarcoma tissues. Bcl-2, however, had elevated expression in cancer cells when compared to adjacent tissues (P<0.05). In cultured cells, Bcl-2 expression level was also potentiated after knock-down of miR-143, while those cells with miR-143 over-expression had depressed Bcl-2 levels. Those cells transfected with miR-143 mimics had higher percentage of apoptotic cells. MiR-143 can regulate the expression of Bcl-2 gene in osteosarcoma cells, and mediate the apoptotic process, thereby playing a critical role in the pathogenesis of osteosarcoma.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of small non-coding RNAs that have been suggested to play critical roles in tumorigenesis. Recently, miR-152 was reported to be dysregulated in some human cancers. However, the function and mechanism of miR-152 in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is still unclear. In the present study, our findings showed that the expression of miR-152 was significantly down-regulated and neuropilin-1 was up-regulated in the NSCLC specimens. Moreover, the levels of miR-152 and neuropilin-1 were inversely correlated. Bioinformatics analyses and luciferase reporter assay showed that miR-152 targeted the 3'-UTR of neuropilin-1 mRNA to inhibit its translation. Furthermore, overexpression of miR-152 inhibited neuropilin-1 mediated cell invasiveness, while down-regulated expression of miR-152 increased neuropilin-1 mediated cell invasiveness in NSCLC cells. Together, these findings indicated that miR-152 suppression in NSCLC cells might promote neuropilin-1 mediated cancer metastasis and suggested a new therapeutic application of miR-152 in the treatment of NSCLC.

The purpose was to investigate whether the expression level of TRAF2 gene was regulated by DNA methylation and explore the role of TRAF2 methylation in the diagnosis and prognosis of gastric cancer (GC). Firstly, we detected the expression of TRAF2 both at mRNA level and protein level. And the up-regulated of TRAF2 expression at two different levels were both found (P<0.001). Then we measured the methylated status of TRAF2 by MSP and got a result of that TRAF2 was hypomethylated in GC patients compared with healthy controls (P<0.001). Meanwhile, the relationship between TRAF2 methylation and clinicopathologic characteristics was estimated through chi-square. The outcome proved that TRAF2 methylation was impacted by age (P=0.024), lymph node metastasis (P=0.046), TNM stage (P=0.021), distant metastasis (P=0.002) and depth of invasion (P=0.002). The AUC of 0.795 accompanying a sensitivity of 66.7% and a specificity of 94.7% were obtained from Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve which indicated the diagnostic value of TRAF2 methylation was high. At last, we researched the prognostic value of TRAF2 methylation. Kaplan-Meier showed that patients with TRAF2 hypomethylation had lived much shorter than those with TRAF2 hypermethylation (log rank test, P<0.001). Cox regression analysis revealed TRAF2 hypomethylation (HR=18.827, 95% CI=3.103-114.222, P=0.001), lymph node metastasis (HR=0.154, 95% CI=0.047-0.512, P=0.002), distant metastasis (HR=3.032, 95% CI=1.116-8.237, P=0.030), as well as differentiation (HR=0.287, 95% CI=0.113-0.731, P=0.009) were all vital prognostic factors in GC. Taken together, TRAF2 expression was increased in GC patients by DNA hypomethylation and this methylation could be an independent diagnostic and prognostic indicator in GC.

To investigate the effects and the potential mechanisms of RKIP on cell migration, invasion and proliferation in human glioma cell lines in vitro.

Minichromosome maintenance 8 (MCM8) is identified as an initiating helicase involved in DNA elongation and involved in cancer. However, little information is available for the role of MCM8 on chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). We aimed to explore the expression and effect of MCM8 on CML.

microRNAs (miRNAs) play essential roles in many tumors, including renal cell carcinoma (RCC). The aim of the present study was to investigate the expression and functional role of miR-29b in RCC and to identify its target genes.

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) CCAT1 and HOTAIR have been shown to play an important regulatory role in cancer biology, and CCAT1 and HOTAIR are upregulated in several cancers, however, its value in the diagnosis of colorectal cancer (CRC) is unclear. Therefore, the aim of this study is to evaluate the clinical significance of plasma CCAT1 and HOTAIR as a biomarker in the screening of CRC. In our study, we found that the levels of HOTAIR (P < 0.05) and CCAT1 (P < 0.05) were significantly higher in plasma of CRC patients than that of the healthy control. Moreover, the levels of lincRNA-p21 (P < 0.05) were obviously decreased in plasma of CRC patients as compared to those of healthy control. There was highly correlated for CCAT1 (R = 0.752, mean differences = -0.06 ± 1.20), HOTAIR (R = 0.739, mean differences = -0.26 ± 0.76) and lincRNA-p21 (R = 0.848, mean differences = -0.41 ± 0.89) in plasma and serum. By receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) analysis, plasma CCAT1 provided the higher diagnostic performance for detection of CRC (the area under the ROC curve (AUC), 0.836; P < 0.001; sensitivity, 75.7%; specificity, 85.3%). Moreover, CCAT1 combining with HOTAIR could provide a more effective diagnosis performance (AUC, 0.954, P < 0.001, sensitivity, 84.3%; specificity, 80.2%). Most importantly, this combination was effective to detect CRC at an early stage (85%). In conclusion, our results demonstrated that increased plasma HOTAIR and CCAT1 could be used as a predictive biomarker for CRC screening, and that combination of HOTAIR and CCAT1 had a higher positive diagnostic rate of CRC than HOTAIR or CCAT1 alone.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most common primary tumor of liver and the fifth most common cancer in the world. Lung is the most frequent site for extra hepatic metastasis from hepatocellular carcinoma, while the cause and mechanism of it is still poor understood. Here, we identify that the expression of miR-195 is markedly impaired in the lung metastasis cell lines of HCC. The result of Real-time PCR reveals the expression of miR-195 is significantly downregulated in 92 HCC tissues. Low expression of miR-195 is associated with tumor size, portal vein thrombosis, TNM stage and patients survival. Luciferase reporter and ELISA assay prove that hematogenous metastasis related genes including FGF2 and VEGFA are the target genes of miR-195. Overexpression of miR-195 in HCC cell line BEL-7402 markedly inhibits the capability of migration and invasion. Taken together, our results suggest that miR-195, a tumor suppressor miRNA, contributes to the lung metastasis of HCC by negatively regulating FGF2 and VEGFA, providing key implications of miR-195 for the therapeutic intervention of HCC.

Previous studies have shown that the dysregulation of miRNAs are frequently associated with cancer progression. Deregulation of miR-211 has been observed in various types of human cancers. However, its biological function in gastric cancer (GC) is still unknown.

PFTK1 was identified as a member of the cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) family and it is frequently upregulated in many types of tumors. However, its expression and role in pancreatic cancer has not been yet reported. In this study, we aimed to explore the expression and function in pancreatic cancer. The present study verified that PFTK1 was highly expressed in pancreatic cancer cell lines. The in vitro experiments demonstrated that knockdown of PFTK1 inhibited the proliferation, migration and invasion of pancreatic cancer cells as well as the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) progress. Finally, knockdown of PFTK1 inhibited the expression of p-PI3K and p-Akt in pancreatic cancer cells. In summary, the present study has provided further evidence that knockdown of PFTK1 inhibited the proliferation and invasion of pancreatic cancer cells as well as the EMT progress by suppressing the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway. Therefore, these findings reveal that PFTK1 might potentially become a novel strategy for targeting pancreatic cancer.

Acute myeloid leukemia is known as one of the most malignant diseases. We aimed at exploring the effect of portulacerebroside A (PCA) on the apoptosis in human leukemia HL60 cells and clarify the possible mechanisms involved in. By MTT analysis, we found that PCA (1-100 μM) inhibited the cell viability in a time- and dose-dependent manner, and cell cycle was arrested at G0/G1 period. PCA treatment from 5 to 50 μM dose-dependently induced apoptosis from 12.7 ± 1.56% to 52.7 ± 6.214% of HL60 cells. Mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP) was decreased and reactive oxygen species (ROS) accumulated obviously. mRNA expressions and protein levels of Bax/Bcl-2, caspase-3 and caspase-9 were elevated significantly. ERK1/2, JNK1/2 and p38 MAPK pathway were blocked detected by western blot analysis. In conclusion, PCA can act as a new agent for leucocythemia treatment.

Gastric cardiac adenocarcinoma (GCA) accounts for a majority of gastric cancer population and harbors unfavorable outcome. Ubiquitin C-terminal hydrolase L1 (UCH-L1) belongs to the deubiquitinating enzyme family, which could regulate cell growth in human cancers. In the present study, expression of UCH-L1 was evaluated in 196 GCAs by immunohistochemistry using tissue microarray and its function on gastric cancer cells was measured. UCH-L1 expression was increased in GCA specimens, compared with their normal tissues and UCH-L1 overexpression is tightly correlated with tumor size and overall TNM stage. Log-rank analysis showed that UCH-L1 positive is reversely associated with cumulative survival (P<0.001). Multivariate Cox regression model showed that UCH-L1 overexpression is a remarkably negative predictor in GCA prognosis (Hazard Ratio=0.53, P<0.01), along with advanced TNM stage that is a known negative factor in gastric cancers (Hazard Ratio=0.33, P<0.05). Silencing of UCH-L1 reduced the ability of cell proliferation, colony formation, migration and invasion of gastric cancer cells. Our findings suggest that UCH-L1 is a promising prognostic biomarker for GCAs and might play an important role in the carcinogenesis of gastric cancer.

The present study was performed to investigate the effect of retinoic acid amide (RAA) on the expression of integrin α3β1, rate of cell proliferation and migration in p53-deficient glioma cell line, LN-308. The results revealed promotion of integrin α3 expression, reduction in proliferation and migration in RAA treated cells compared to the control LN-308 glioma cells. Promotion of RAA induced integrin α3β1 expression led to the enhancement in cyclin-dependent kinase nuclear localization and activation of Akt pathway. In addition, RAA treatment inhibited the expression of nuclear factor-κB, Bcl-2 and epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR). These factors are responsible for promoting the rate of cell proliferation and survival in the carcinoma cells. Thus RAA treatment inhibits rate of LN-308 glioma cell proliferation and migration through increase in integrin α3β1 expression and activation of Akt pathway. Therefore, RAA can be of therapeutic importance for the treatment of glioma.