Oncology reports
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Hepatocellular carcinoma is the most common type of liver cancer. The risk of hepatocellular carcinoma for type 2 diabetic patients is greater than that for non-diabetic individuals although the mechanism is unclear. The cancer suppressor resveratrol inhibits cancer cell proliferation partly through the STAT3 signaling pathway. ⋯ This effect was suppressed by resveratrol (100 µM), and the effect on the p-STAT3 signaling pathway was found to be SIRT1-dependent. Our findings may provide new insights into the mechanism by which resveratrol suppresses HepG2 cell proliferation under conditions of high glucose. Furthermore, this information may provide the basis for a novel therapeutic strategy for hepatocellular carcinoma patients suffering from either diabetes or hyperglycemia.
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Telomerase is a reverse transcriptase ribonucleo-protein (h-TERT) that synthesizes telomeric repeats using its RNA component (h-TERC) as a template. Telomerase dysfunction has been associated with both fibrogenesis and carcinogenesis. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the telomerase mRNA expression levels of both subunits (h-TERT and h-TERC) in lung tissue and bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) from patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), since there are indications of common pathogenetic pathways in these diseases. ⋯ More specifically, h-TERT mRNA levels in the patients with IPF were higher compared with those in the controls (p=0.03) and patients with NSCLC (p=0.007). The attenuation of telomerase gene expression in IPF in comparison to lung cancer suggests a differential role of this regulatory gene in fibrogenesis and carcinogenesis. Further functional studies are required in order to further elucidate the role of telomerase in these devastating diseases.