Scoparone, a natural compound isolated from Artemisia capillaris, has been used in Chinese herbal medicine to treat neonatal jaundice. Signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) contributes to the growth and survival of many human tumors. This study was undertaken to investigate the anti-tumor activity of scoparone against DU145 prostate cancer cells and to determine whether its...

The aims of this study were to investigate the impact of Soybean Isoflavones (SIFs) on the cellular oxidative stress levels in hormone-sensitive type (LNCap) and hormone-insensitive type (DU145) of prostate cancer, and to elucidate the main components and their roles in the transformation of Androgen Dependency (AD)/Androgen Independency (AI). The LNCap and DU145 cells were treated with differe...

BACKGROUND As one of the most common cancers in men, the pathogenesis of prostate cancer has been widely researched. Aberrant activation of the erb-b2 receptor tyrosine kinase 2 (ERBB2) has been found to play a critical role in metastatic prostate cancer. In our previous study, we demonstrated that rs61552325 (Pro1140Ala) located in ERBB2 is strongly correlated to prostate cancer. Therefore, we...

Activins are growth and differentiation factors which have been shown to have proliferative and antiproliferative actions in many tissues. In addition, they have been implicated in tumourigenesis in reproductive tissues. Although activin and inhibin are present in rat ventral prostate, inhibin beta, but not alpha, subunit proteins have been detected in the human prostate epithelial tumour cell ...

Autophagy is one of the main cytoprotective mechanisms that cancer cells deploy to withstand the cytotoxic stress and survive the lethal damage induced by anti-cancer drugs. However, under specific conditions, autophagy may, directly or indirectly, induce cell death. In our study, treatment of the Atg5-deficient DU145 prostate cancer cells, with the multi-tyrosine kinase inhibitor, sorafenib, i...

Maspin is a novel serine protease inhibitor (serpin) with tumor suppressive potential in breast and prostate cancer, acting at the level of tumor invasion and metastasis. It was subsequently demonstrated that maspin inhibits tumor invasion, at least in part, by inhibiting cell motility. Interestingly, in cell-free solutions, maspin does not inhibit several serine proteases including tissue-type...

SUMOylation plays an important role in regulating a wide range of cellular processes. Previously, we showed that ATF3, a stress response mediator, can be SUMOylated and lysine 42 is the major SUMO site. However, the significance of ATF3 SUMOylation in biological processes is still poorly understood. In the present study, we investigated the role of ATF3 SUMOylation on CCND activity and cellular...

The functions of basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) transcription factor-differentiated embryonic chondrocyte (DEC)1 (BHLHE40) and 2 (BHLHE41) are involved in various fields such as circadian rhythms, immune responses, cell proliferation, hypoxia reaction as well as malignant tumors. Previous findings showed that DEC served as apoptosis regulators of various cancer cell lines. However, little is kno...

Advanced, metastatic, castration resistant and chemo-resistant prostate cancer has triggered change in the drug development landscape against prostate cancer. Bovine lactoferrin (bLf) is currently attracting attention in clinics for its anti-cancer properties and proven safety profile. bLf internalises into cancer cells via receptor mediated endocytosis, boosts immunity and complements chemothe...