Publications (2)3.56 Total impact
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Article: Epigenetic modifiers as anticancer drugs: effectiveness of valproic acid in neural crest-derived tumor cells.
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ABSTRACT: Valproic acid (VPA) is an established drug in the long-term therapy of epilepsy. Recently, VPA has demonstrated antitumor activity as a histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor. In this study, the anticancer properties of VPA on neural crest-derived human tumor cell lines G361 melanoma, U87MG glioblastoma and SKNMC Askin tumor cells were investigated. The effect of VPA on cell growth, apoptotic activity and invasive ability were evaluated. Firstly, VPA induced cell growth inhibition and apoptotic activity, as demonstrated by sulforhodamine B protein assay, annexin V assay and by Western blot analysis for Bcl2 and Bax expression levels, in all three cell lines. In addition, VPA led to a decrease of HDAC-1 protein level, as assessed by Western blot analysis. Treatment with VPA caused a decrease in the invasive ability of all three cell lines. Since the invasion process involves a complex system of tightly regulated proteases, matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) and their tissue-specific inhibitors (TIMPs), the effect of VPA on MMP and TIMP expressions was analysed. Exposure to VPA resulted in a decrease of MMP2 and MMP9 activity and expression level, as assesssed by gelatin zymography and Western blot analysis. In addition, exposure to VPA led to enhanced expression of TIMP1, as assessed by Western blot. Taken together, our results, besides providing further evidence that VPA may represent a promising therapeutic strategy in cancer treatment, may help in the design of new protocols geared at the treatment of neural crest-derived tumors.Anticancer research 02/2010; 30(2):535-40. · 1.73 Impact Factor -
Article: p21Waf1/Cip1 is a common target induced by short-chain fatty acid HDAC inhibitors (valproic acid, tributyrin and sodium butyrate) in neuroblastoma cells.
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ABSTRACT: Histone acetyltransferase and histone deacetylase (HDAC) determine the acetylation status of histones, and thereby control the regulation of gene expression. HDAC inhibitors have been found to inhibit the growth of a variety of tumor cells in vitro and in vivo. We demonstrated previously that the short-chain fatty acid compound butyrate and its derivative tributyrin (both HDAC inhibitors) arrest cell growth and induce differentiation in human neuroblastoma (NB) cells. In the current study we investigated the effect of the HDAC inhibitor valproic acid (VPA) on proliferation and differentiation in human NB cells (SJ-N-KP, AF8). Treatment with VPA resulted in a strong inhibition of cell proliferation and induction of cell differentiation, as revealed by neurite outgrowth and increase of acetylcholinesterase specific activity. Moreover, we addressed the question of whether the cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitors p21(Cip1) and p27(Kip1) are involved in the mechanism of action of members of the short-chain fatty acids class (VPA, sodium butyrate and tributyrin) of HDAC inhibitors, in human NB cells. We demonstrated that p21(Cip1) is a common target of induction of transcription and protein expression for all the three compounds, while only VPA induced a concomitant increase of p27(Kip1) gene expression. These results suggest that p21(Cip1) could be involved in the inhibition of proliferation and induction of differentiation in human NB cells induced by treatment with VPA or tributyrin or sodium butyrate. Moreover, p21(Cip1) could be applied in the molecular monitoring of drug action in the possible therapeutic application of these short-chain fatty acid members of HDAC inhibitors for human NB treatment.Oncology Reports 07/2005; 13(6):1139-44. · 1.84 Impact Factor
