In 2005, the first robust hepatitis C virus (HCV) infectious cell culture system was developed based on the HCV genotype 2a JFH-1 molecular clone and the human-derived hepatoma cell line Huh7. Although much effort has been made to dissect and expand the repertoire of JFH-1-derived clones, less attention has been given to the host cell despite the intriguing facts that thus far only Huh7 cells h...

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is closely associated with insulin resistance (IS), acting primarily by interfering with insulin signaling pathways, increasing cytokine-mediated (tumor necrosis factor α, interleukin 6) inflammatory responses and enhancing oxidative stress. In the insulin signaling pathways, the insulin receptor substrate (IRS) is one of the key regulatory factors. The present study con...

Activation of nuclear factor-kappaB (NF-kappaB) can promote or inhibit apoptosis. Oxidative stress is an important mechanism by which certain anticancer drugs kill cancer cells, and is also one of the mechanisms that activate NF-kappaB. We therefore examined hepatic expression of the NF-kappaB monomer p65 in human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tissue samples from eight patients and compared it...

The hepatotoxic bile acid glycochenodeoxycholate (GCDC) modulates hepatocyte cell death through activation of JNK, Akt, and Erk. The nonhepatotoxic bile acid taurocholate activates Akt and Erk through the sphingosine-1-phosphate receptor 2 (S1PR2). The role of the S1PR2 in GCDC-mediated apoptosis and kinase activation is unknown. Studies were done in rat hepatocytes, HUH7 cells, and HUH7 cells ...

Doxorubicin (DOX) is one of the most commonly used anticancer drugs in the treatment of hepatoma. However, acquired drug resistance is one of the major challenges for the chemotherapy. In this study, a down-regulation of miR-122 was observed in doxorubicin-resistant Huh7 (Huh7/R) cells compared with its parental Huh7 cells, suggesting miR-122 is associated with the chemoresistance. Meanwhile, l...

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common potentially lethal human malignancies worldwide. Sorafenib, a tyrosine kinase inhibitor, was recently approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration for HCC. In this study, we established two sorafenib-resistant HCC cell lines from Huh7, a human HCC cell line, by long-term exposure of cells to sorafenib. Sorafenib induced sign...

The long non-coding RNA BRAF-activated non-coding RNA (BANCR) has been reported to serve essential roles in the progress of a various cancer types. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of lncRNA BANCR in HCC cells. The expression of BANCR in the HCC cell line Huh7 and a normal liver cell line were determined using reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain rea...

The aim of this study was to examine the arsenic effect on activation of aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR)-mediated gene expression by 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (2,3,7,8-TCDD) in human hepatoma cells. The human hepatoma Huh7 cells were treated with sodium arsenite (NaAsO2) from 0.5 to 20 microM for 24 h. Our data revealed that NaAsO2 < or = 10 microM caused no significant cytotoxic effe...

Dicistronic, selectable subgenomic replicons derived from the Con1 strain of hepatitis C virus (HCV) are capable of autonomous replication in cultured Huh7 cells (Lohmann et al., Science 285:110-113, 1999). However, adaptive mutations in the NS3, NS5A, and/or NS5B proteins are required for efficient replication of these RNAs and increase by orders of magnitude the numbers of G418-resistant colo...

Cytochrome P450 1A2 (CYP1A2) is an important member of cytochrome P450 involved in drug metabolism. In this study, a cell line, Huh7-1A2-I-E, with high expression level of CYP1A2 is established based on Huh7 cells. To achieve this, we constructed a recombinant lentiviral vector, pLenti-1A2-I-E, containing a single promoter encoding CYP1A2 followed by an internal ribosome entry site (IRES) to pe...