Striking findings on liver cancer by IBG researchers
Striking findings on liver cancer by IBG researchers
A new study led by Prof. Dr. Şerif Şentürk, Principal Investigator at the Izmir Biomedicine and Genome Center (IBG), and researcher Minenur Kalyoncu, has been published in the Molecular Oncology journal. The study reveals that epithelial hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cells can acquire more aggressive tumor characteristics by escaping TGF-β-induced cellular senescence.
Experiments using the Huh7 cell line showed that chronic exposure to TGF-β leads to the emergence of resistant cells. These cells displayed aggressive tumor behaviors such as epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT), increased invasiveness, and metastatic potential. The resistance was found to be associated particularly with impaired nuclear translocation of the Smad3 protein.
Moreover, the study identified MARK1 and GRM8 as key regulatory genes involved in the resistance process, highlighting them as potential therapeutic targets.
The full study is available open access at the following link: https://febs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/1878-0261.70021