1. The Silencing of Pokemon Attenuates the Proliferation of Hepatocellular Carcinoma Cells In Vitro and In Vivo by Inhibiting the PI3K/Akt Pathway
- Author
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Bayasi Guleng, Xiao-Ning Yang, Yun-Peng Liu, Chan-Chan Lin, Jing-Ping Zhou, Zhi-Ping Zhang, Jian-Lin Ren, Amarsanaa Jazag, and Jing-Jing Liu
- Subjects
Male ,MAPK/ERK pathway ,Tumor Physiology ,Cellular differentiation ,lcsh:Medicine ,Apoptosis ,Signal transduction ,ERK signaling cascade ,Immunoenzyme Techniques ,Mice ,Phosphatidylinositol 3-Kinases ,Molecular cell biology ,Cell Movement ,Akt signaling cascade ,Basic Cancer Research ,Tumor Cells, Cultured ,Morphogenesis ,RNA, Small Interfering ,lcsh:Science ,Multidisciplinary ,Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction ,Cell Cycle ,Liver Neoplasms ,Signaling cascades ,Cell migration ,Cell cycle ,Cell biology ,DNA-Binding Proteins ,Oncology ,Medicine ,Research Article ,Carcinoma, Hepatocellular ,MAP Kinase Signaling System ,Blotting, Western ,Mice, Nude ,Cell Migration ,In Vitro Techniques ,Biology ,Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction ,Gastrointestinal Tumors ,Animals ,Humans ,Gene silencing ,RNA, Messenger ,Protein kinase B ,PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway ,Cell Proliferation ,Wound Healing ,Cell growth ,lcsh:R ,Cancers and Neoplasms ,Hepatocellular Carcinoma ,Xenograft Model Antitumor Assays ,digestive system diseases ,lcsh:Q ,Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-akt ,Transcription Factors ,Developmental Biology - Abstract
Pokemon (POK erythroid myeloid ontogenic factor), which belongs to the POK protein family, is also called LRF, OCZF and FBI-1. As a transcriptional repressor, Pokemon assumes a critical function in cellular differentiation and oncogenesis. Our study identified an oncogenic role for Pokemon in human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). We successfully established human HepG2 and Huh-7 cell lines in which Pokemon was stably knocked down. We demonstrated that Pokemon silencing inhibited cell proliferation and migration. Pokemon knockdown inhibited the PI3K/Akt and c-Raf/MEK/ERK pathways and modulated the expression of various cell cycle regulators in HepG2 and Huh-7 cells. Therefore, Pokemon may also be involved in cell cycle progression in these cells. We confirmed that Pokemon silencing suppresses hepatocellular carcinoma growth in tumor xenograft mice. These results suggest that Pokemon promotes cell proliferation and migration in hepatocellular carcinoma and accelerates tumor development in an Akt- and ERK-signaling-dependent manner.
- Published
- 2012