Liankun Sun

Jilin University, Jilin, Jilin Sheng, China

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Publications (7)29.06 Total impact

  • Article: Suppression of CLIC4/mtCLIC enhances hydrogen peroxide-induced apoptosis in C6 glioma cells.
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    ABSTRACT: CLIC4/mtCLIC (referred to here as CLIC4) is one of the seven-member family of chloride intracellular channels (CLIC). CLIC4 localizes to the mitochondria, nucleus, cytoplasm and other organellular compartments and participates in the apoptotic response to stress. However, the role of CLIC4 in oxidative stress and apoptosis is not well understood. In this study, we showed the important role of CLIC4 in apoptosis of C6 glioma cells induced by hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). Our results showed that CLIC4 protein expression was upregulated following H2O2-induced C6 cell apoptosis. The upregulation of CLIC4 protein expression was paralleled with an increased Bax/Bcl-2 ratio, cytochrome c and cleaved caspase-3 protein expression upon H2O2-induced C6 cell apoptosis. Suppression of CLIC4 expression by RNA interference enhanced cell apoptosis, but the ratio of Bax/Bcl-2 was not involved in this process. Dissipation of mitochondrial membrane potential and nuclear translocation of CLIC4 were involved in the activation of apoptosis induced by H2O2. Our data indicate that CLIC4 protein may be a key element in the apoptotic response to oxidative stress.
    Oncology Reports 01/2013; · 1.84 Impact Factor
  • Article: Lysosome Dysfunction Enhances Oxidative Stress-Induced Apoptosis through Ubiquitinated Protein Accumulation in Hela Cells.
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    ABSTRACT: The role of lysosomal system in oxidative stress-induced apoptosis in cancer cells is not fully understood. Menadione is frequently used as oxidative stress model. It is indicated that menadione could induce autophagy in Hela cells. In the present study, we examined whether the lysosomal inhibitor, ammonium chloride (NH(4) Cl) could prevent the autophagy flux by inhibiting the fusion of autophagosomes with lysosomes and enhance apoptosis induced by menadione via mitochondrial pathway. The results demonstrated generation and accumulation of reactive oxygen species and increased levels of ubiquitinated proteins and GRP78 in cells treated with both menadione and NH(4) Cl. Our data indicates that lysosomal system through autophagy plays an important role in preventing menadione-induced apoptosis in Hela cells by clearing misfolded proteins, which alleviates endoplasmic reticulum stress. Anat Rec, 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
    The Anatomical Record Advances in Integrative Anatomy and Evolutionary Biology 11/2012; · 1.47 Impact Factor
  • Article: Inhibition of autophagy enhances cisplatin cytotoxicity through endoplasmic reticulum stress in human cervical cancer cells.
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    ABSTRACT: The function of autophagy in cisplatin-treated cancer cells is not fully understood. Cisplatin treatment induced degradation of ubiquitinated proteins by autophagy, which reduced apoptosis induced by endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress and downregulated the mitochondrial pathway of apoptosis. Inhibition of autophagy using 3-methyladenine (3-MA) or chloroquine (CQ) increased the levels of intracellular misfolded proteins, which enhanced cellular apoptosis. We found that tunicamycin, an ER stress inducer, augmented cisplatin cytotoxicity by upregulating ER stress-mediated apoptosis. Our data indicates that autophagy plays an important role in preventing cisplatin-induced apoptosis in HeLa cells, thus inhibition of autophagy may improve cisplatin chemotherapy.
    Cancer letters 01/2012; 314(2):232-43. · 4.86 Impact Factor
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    Article: Inhibition of CLIC4 enhances autophagy and triggers mitochondrial and ER stress-induced apoptosis in human glioma U251 cells under starvation.
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    ABSTRACT: CLIC4/mtCLIC, a chloride intracellular channel protein, localizes to mitochondria, endoplasmic reticulum (ER), nucleus and cytoplasm, and participates in the apoptotic response to stress. Apoptosis and autophagy, the main types of the programmed cell death, seem interconnected under certain stress conditions. However, the role of CLIC4 in autophagy regulation has yet to be determined. In this study, we demonstrate upregulation and nuclear translocation of the CLIC4 protein following starvation in U251 cells. CLIC4 siRNA transfection enhanced autophagy with increased LC3-II protein and puncta accumulation in U251 cells under starvation conditions. In that condition, the interaction of the 14-3-3 epsilon isoform with CLIC4 was abolished and resulted in Beclin 1 overactivation, which further activated autophagy. Moreover, inhibiting the expression of CLIC4 triggered both mitochondrial apoptosis involved in Bax/Bcl-2 and cytochrome c release under starvation and endoplasmic reticulum stress-induced apoptosis with CHOP and caspase-4 upregulation. These results demonstrate that CLIC4 nuclear translocation is an integral part of the cellular response to starvation. Inhibiting the expression of CLIC4 enhances autophagy and contributes to mitochondrial and ER stress-induced apoptosis under starvation.
    PLoS ONE 01/2012; 7(6):e39378. · 4.09 Impact Factor
  • Article: p62/SQSTM1 involved in cisplatin resistance in human ovarian cancer cells by clearing ubiquitinated proteins.
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    ABSTRACT: Mechanisms of cisplatin resistance in cancer cells are not fully understood. Here, we show a critical role for the ubiquitin-binding protein p62/SQSTM1 in cisplatin resistance in human ovarian cancer cells (HOCCs). Specifically, we found that cisplatin-resistant SKOV3/DDP cells express much higher levels of p62 than do cisplatin-sensitive SKOV3 cells. The protein p62 binds ubiquitinated proteins for transport to autophagic degradation, reducing apoptosis induced by endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress in SKOV3/DDP cells. Knockdown of p62 or inhibition of autophagy using 3-methyladenine resensitises SKOV3/DDP cells to cisplatin. Collectively, our data indicate that p62 acts as a receptor or adaptor for autophagic degradation of ubiquitinated proteins, and plays an important role in preventing ER stress-induced apoptosis, leading to cisplatin resistance in HOCCs.
    European journal of cancer (Oxford, England: 1990) 03/2011; 47(10):1585-94. · 4.12 Impact Factor
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    Article: An integrated transcriptomic and computational analysis for biomarker identification in gastric cancer.
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    ABSTRACT: This report describes an integrated study on identification of potential markers for gastric cancer in patients' cancer tissues and sera based on: (i) genome-scale transcriptomic analyses of 80 paired gastric cancer/reference tissues and (ii) computational prediction of blood-secretory proteins supported by experimental validation. Our findings show that: (i) 715 and 150 genes exhibit significantly differential expressions in all cancers and early-stage cancers versus reference tissues, respectively; and a substantial percentage of the alteration is found to be influenced by age and/or by gender; (ii) 21 co-expressed gene clusters have been identified, some of which are specific to certain subtypes or stages of the cancer; (iii) the top-ranked gene signatures give better than 94% classification accuracy between cancer and the reference tissues, some of which are gender-specific; and (iv) 136 of the differentially expressed genes were predicted to have their proteins secreted into blood, 81 of which were detected experimentally in the sera of 13 validation samples and 29 found to have differential abundances in the sera of cancer patients versus controls. Overall, the novel information obtained in this study has led to identification of promising diagnostic markers for gastric cancer and can benefit further analyses of the key (early) abnormalities during its development.
    Nucleic Acids Research 10/2010; 39(4):1197-207. · 8.03 Impact Factor
  • Article: Oxidative stress induces parallel autophagy and mitochondria dysfunction in human glioma U251 cells.
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    ABSTRACT: Accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) such as hydrogen peroxide (H(2)O(2)) is an oxidative stress response, which induced various defense mechanisms or programmed cell death (PCD). As one of the major types of PCD, autophagy has been observed in response to several anticancer drugs and demonstrated to be responsible for cell death. To date, however, the exact mechanism by which ROS regulates autophagy is still poorly understood. Thus, the purposes of this study were to elucidate how H(2)O(2) exerts its cytotoxic effects on malignant glioma U251 cells and to uncover the molecular mechanism that might be involved. Here, we show that H(2)O(2)-induced autophagy and apoptosis in U251 cells are mediated through the Beclin 1 and Akt/mTOR pathways. Accumulation of ROS leads to changes in mitochondrial permeability with loss of mitochondrial membrane potential and disruption of mitochondrial dynamics at a transcriptional level of fission and fusion. Overexpression of cellular Bcl-2 partially inhibited autophagy through both the Beclin 1 and the Akt/mTOR pathways and led to recovery of mitochondrial dynamics. When autophagy was prevented at an early stage by 3-methyladenine, apoptosis significantly increased. Our data provide the first evidence that H(2)O(2) induces autophagy through interference with the Beclin 1 and Akt/mTOR signaling pathways and is regulated by the anti-apoptotic gene Bcl-2 in glioma U251 cells.
    Toxicological Sciences 06/2009; 110(2):376-88. · 4.65 Impact Factor