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To explore the mechanism of glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis, we investigated the effect of glucocorticoid on canonical Wnt signaling that emerged as a novel key pathway for promoting bone formation. Wnt3a increased the T-cell factor (Tcf)/lymphoid enhancer factor (Lef)-dependent transcriptional activity in primary cultured human osteoblasts. Dexamethasone suppressed this transcriptional activity in a dose-dependent manner, while 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 increased this transcriptional activity. LiCl, an inhibitor of glycogen synthase kinase-3beta, also enhanced the Tcf/Lef-dependent transcriptional activity, which was, however, not inhibited by dexamethasone. The addition of anti-dickkopf-1 antibody partially restored the transcriptional activity suppressed by dexamethasone. Dexamethasone decreased the cytosolic amount of beta-catenin accumulated by Wnt3a and also inhibited the nuclear translocation of beta-catenin induced by Wnt3a. These data suggest that glucocorticoid suppresses the canonical Wnt signal in cultured human osteoblasts, partially through the enhancement of the dickkopf-1 production.

One of the major obstacles to the successful treatment of cancer is the complex biology of solid tumour development. Although regulation of intracellular pH has been shown to be critically important for many cellular functions, pH regulation has not been fully investigated in the field of cancer. It has, however, been shown that cellular pH is crucial for biological functions such as cell proliferation, invasion and metastasis, drug resistance and apoptosis. Hypoxic conditions are often observed during the development of solid tumours and lead to intracellular and extracellular acidosis. Cellular acidosis has been shown to be a trigger in the early phase of apoptosis and leads to activation of endonucleases inducing DNA fragmentation. To avoid intracellular acidification under such conditions, pH regulators are thought to be up-regulated in tumour cells. Four major types of pH regulator have been identified: the proton pump, the sodium-proton exchanger family (NHE), the bicarbonate transporter family (BCT) and the monocarboxylate transporter family (MCT). Here, we describe the structure and function of pH regulators expressed in tumour tissue. Understanding pH regulation in tumour cells may provide new ways of inducing tumour-specific apoptosis, thus aiding cancer chemotherapy.

Mitochondrial transcription factor A (mtTFA) is necessary for both transcription and maintenance of mtDNA, and is also one of the high mobility group (HMG) proteins that preferentially binds to cisplatin-damaged DNA. In this study we confirmed the preferential binding of mtTFA to cisplatin-damaged DNA, and also discovered that mtTFA binds to oxidatively damaged DNA. The affinity for oxidatively damaged DNA of mtTFA is higher for A/8-oxo-dG and C/8-oxo-dG than for G/8-oxo-dG and T/8-oxo-dG. Our findings suggest that mtTFA plays an important role in the recognition of oxidative DNA damage.