• BMB Reports
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• v.53 no.8
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• pp.425-430
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• 2020

Tumor necrosis factor-inducible gene 6 protein (TSG-6) is a cytokine secreted by mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) and regulates MSC stemness. We previously reported that TSG-6 changes primary human hepatic stellate cells (pHSCs) into stem-like cells by activating yes-associated protein-1 (YAP-1). However, the molecular mechanism behind the reprogramming action of TSG-6 in pHSCs remains unknown. Cluster of differentiation 44 (CD44) is a transmembrane protein that has multiple functions depending on the ligand it is binding, and it is involved in various signaling pathways, including the Wnt/β-catenin pathway. Given that β-catenin influences stemness and acts downstream of CD44, we hypothesized that TSG-6 interacts with the CD44 receptor and stimulates β-catenin to activate YAP-1 during TSG-6-mediated transdifferentiation of HSCs. Immunoprecipitation assays showed the interaction of TSG-6 with CD44, and immunofluorescence staining analyses revealed the colocalization of TSG-6 and CD44 at the plasma membrane of TSG-6-treated pHSCs. In addition, TSG-6 treatment upregulated the inactive form of phosphorylated glycogen synthase kinase (GSK)-3β, which is a negative regulator of β-catenin, and promoted nuclear accumulation of active/nonphosphorylated β-catenin, eventually leading to the activation of YAP-1. However, CD44 suppression in pHSCs following CD44 siRNA treatment blocked the activation of β-catenin and YAP-1, which inhibited the transition of TSG-6-treated HSCs into stem-like cells. Therefore, these findings demonstrate that TSG-6 interacts with CD44 and activates β-catenin and YAP-1 during the conversion of TSG-6-treated pHSCs into stem-like cells, suggesting that this novel pathway is an effective therapeutic target for controlling liver disease.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.73-82
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• 2018

Cancer preventive activities of green tea and its main constituent, (-)-epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) have been extensively studied by scientists all over the world. Since 1983, we have studied the cancer chemopreventive effects of EGCG as well as green tea extract and underlying molecular mechanisms. The first part of this review summarizes groundbreaking topics with EGCG and green tea extract: 1) Delayed cancer onset as revealed by a 10-year prospective cohort study, 2) Prevention of colorectal adenoma recurrence by a double-blind randomized clinical phase II trial, 3) Inhibition of metastasis of B16 melanoma cells to the lungs of mice, 4) Increase in the average value of Young's moduli, i.e., cell stiffness, for human lung cancer cell lines and inhibition of cell motility and 5) Synergistic enhancement of anticancer activity against human cancer cell lines with the combination of EGCG and anticancer compounds. In the second part, we became interested in cancer stem cells (CSCs). 1) Cancer stem cells in mouse skin carcinogenesis by way of introduction, after which we discuss two subjects from our review on human CSCs reported by other investigators gathered from a search of PubMed, 2) Expression of stemness markers of human CSCs compared with their parental cells, and 3) EGCG decreases or increases the expression of mRNA and protein in human CSCs. On this point, EGCG inhibited self-renewal and expression of pluripotency-maintaining transcription factors in human CSCs. Human CSCs are thus a target for cancer prevention and treatment with EGCG and green tea catechins.

• Experimental and Molecular Medicine
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• v.50 no.12
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• pp.5.1-5.15
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• 2018

Targeting hair follicle regeneration has been investigated for the treatment of hair loss, and fundamental studies investigating stem cells and their niche have been described. However, knowledge of stem cell metabolism and the specific regulation of bioenergetics during the hair regeneration process is currently insufficient. Here, we report the hair regrowth-promoting effect of a newly synthesized novel small molecule, IM176OUT05 (IM), which activates stem cell metabolism. IM facilitated stemness induction and maintenance during an induced pluripotent stem cell generation process. IM treatment mildly inhibited mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation and concurrently increased glycolysis, which accelerated stemness induction during the early phase of reprogramming. More importantly, the topical application of IM accelerated hair follicle regeneration by stimulating the progression of the hair follicle cycle to the anagen phase and increased the hair follicle number in mice. Furthermore, the stem cell population with a glycolytic metabotype appeared slightly earlier in the IM-treated mice. Stem cell and niche signaling involved in the hair regeneration process was also activated by the IM treatment during the early phase of hair follicle regeneration. Overall, these results show that the novel small molecule IM promotes tissue regeneration, specifically in hair regrowth, by restructuring the metabolic configuration of stem cells.

• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.161-172
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• 2022

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common cancer worldwide and has a high recurrence rate, which is associated with cancer stem cells (CSCs). β-carotene (BC) possesses antioxidant activity and several anticancer mechanisms. However, no investigation has examined its effect on colon cancer stemness. MATERIALS/METHODS: CD133⁺CD44⁺ HCT116 and CD133⁺CD44⁺ HT-29 cells were isolated and analyzed their self-renewal capacity by clonogenic and sphere formation assays. Expressions of several CSCs markers and Wnt/β-catenin signaling were examined. In addition, CD133⁺CD44⁺ HCT116 cells were subcutaneously injected in xenograft mice and analyzed the effect of BC on tumor formation, tumor volume, and CSCs markers in tumors. RESULTS: BC inhibited self-renewal capacity and CSC markers, including CD44, CD133, ALDH1A1, NOTCH1, Sox2, and β-catenin in vitro. The effects of BC on CSC markers were confirmed in primary cells isolated from human CRC tumors. BC supplementation decreased the number and size of tumors and delayed the tumor-onset time in xenograft mice injected with CD133⁺CD44⁺ HCT116 cells. The inhibitory effect of BC on CSC markers and the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway in tumors was confirmed in vivo as well. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that BC may be a potential therapeutic agent for colon cancer by targeting colon CSCs.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.26 no.11
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• pp.1313-1319
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• 2016

Cancer is a complex disease heterogeneously composed of various types of cells including cancer stem-like cells responsible for relapse and chemoresistance in the tumor microenvironment. The conventional two-dimensional cell culture-based platform has critical limitations for representing the heterogeneity of cancer cells in the three-dimensional tumor niche in vivo. To overcome this insufficiency, three-dimensional cell culture methods in a scaffold-dependent or -free physical environment have been developed. In this study, we improved and simplified the HCT-8 colon cancer cell-based spheroid culture protocol and evaluated the relationship between cancer stemness and responses of chemosensitivity to 5- Fluorouracil (5-FU), a representative anticancer agent against colon cancer. Supplementation with defined growth factors in the medium and the culture dish of the regular surface with low attachment were required for the formation of constant-sized spheroids containing $CD44^+$ and $CD133^+$ colon cancer stem cells. The chemo-sensitivities of $CD44^+$ cancer stem cells in the spheroids were much lower than those of $CD44^-$ non-stem-like cancer cells, indicating that the chemoresistance to 5-FU is due to the stemness of colon cancer cells. Taken together, the inflammation and oncogenic gut environment-sensitive HCT-8 cell-based colon cancer spheroid culture and comparative evaluation using the simplified model would be an efficient and applicable way to estimate colon cancer stemness and pharmaceutical response to anticancer drugs in the realistic tumor niche.

• BMB Reports
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• v.54 no.1
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• pp.12-20
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• 2021

In the last decade, we have witnessed an unprecedented clinical success in cancer immunotherapies targeting the programmed cell-death ligand 1 (PD-L1) and programmed cell-death 1 (PD-1) pathway. Besides the fact that PD-L1 plays a key role in immune regulation in tumor microenvironment, recently a plethora of reports has suggested a new perspective of non-immunological functions of PD-L1 in the regulation of cancer intrinsic activities including mesenchymal transition, glucose and lipid metabolism, stemness, and autophagy. Here we review the current understanding on the regulation of expression and intrinsic protumoral activity of cancer-intrinsic PD-L1.

• Journal of Animal Reproduction and Biotechnology
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.26-31
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• 2023

Chicken embryonic stem (ES) cells have great potential and provide a powerful tool to investigate embryonic development and to manipulate genetic modification in a genome. However, very limited studies are available on the functional characterization and robust expansion of chicken ES cells compared to other species. Here, we have developed a method to generate chicken embryonic stem cell-like cells under pluripotent culture conditions. The chicken embryonic stem cell-like cells were cultivated long-term over several passages of culture without loss of pluripotency in vitro and had the specific expression of key stem cell markers. Furthermore, they showed severe changes in morphology and a significant reduction in pluripotent genes after siRNA-mediated NANOG knockdown. Collectively, these results demonstrate the efficient generation of chicken embryonic stem cell-like cells from EGK stage X blastoderm-derived singularized cells and will facilitate their potential use for various purposes, such as biobanking genetic materials and understanding stemness in the fields of animal biotechnology.

• Development and Reproduction
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.105-114
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• 2005

Embryonic stem(ES) cells have tremendous potential as a cell source for cell-based therapies. Realization of that potential will depend on our ability to understand and manipulate the factors that influence cell fate decision and to develop methods for getting enough cell numbers for clinical applications. Hematopoiesis has been widely studied, and hematopoietic differentiation from ES cells is a good model to study lineage commitment. In this study, we investigated stemness and compared the efficiency of hematopoietic differentiation using two different mouse embryonic stem cell lines TC-1 and B6-1. Although the two cell lines showed known stem cell properties with minor differences, the embryoid body formation efficiency in methylcellulose was much higher in TC-1 than B6-1. When measured potentials of hematopoietic differentiation using functional(colony-forming cell) and phenotypic(specific marker expression) assays, we found that TC-1 can differentiate into hematopoietic cells in methylcellulose culture but B6-1 cannot. These results imply that we can improve the efficiency of hematopoietic cell differentiation by selection of proper cell lines and this may be also applied in the differentiation of human embryonic stem cells.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.30 no.8
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• pp.661-671
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• 2020

The resistance of cancer cells to anti-cancer drugs is the leading cause of chemotherapy failure. The clinical use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) has been gradually extended to cancer treatment through combination with anti-cancer drugs. In the current study, we investigated whether NSAIDs including celecoxib (CCB), 2,5-dimethyl celecoxib (DMC), and ibuprofen (IBU) could enhance the cytotoxic effects of imatinib and TNF-related apoptosis inducing ligand (TRAIL) on human cancer cells. We found that the NSAIDs potentiated TRAIL and imatinib cytotoxicity against human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cell lines SNU-354, SNU-423, SNU-449, and SNU-475/TR and against leukemic K562 cells with high level of CD44 (CD44^highK562), respectively. More specifically, CCB induced endoplasmic reticulum stress via up-regulation of ATF4/CHOP which is associated with the induction of autophagy against HCC and CD44^high K562 cells. NSAID-induced autophagic activity accelerated TRAIL cytotoxicity of HCC cells through up- and down-regulation of DR5 and c-FLIP, respectively. The NSAIDs also potentiated imatinib-induced cytotoxicity and apoptosis through down-regulation of markers in CD44^highK562 cells that express a stemness phenotype. Our results suggest that the ability of NSAIDs to induce autophagy could enhance the cytotoxicity of TRAIL and imatinib, leading to a reverse resistance to these drugs in the cancer cells. In conclusion, NSAIDs in combination with low-dose TRAIL or imatinib may constitute a novel clinical strategy that maximizes therapeutic efficacy of each drug and effectively reduces the toxic side effects.

• Journal of Periodontal and Implant Science
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.119-128
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• 2009

Purpose: The aim of this study was to evaluate the stemness of cells from canine dental tissues and bone marrow. Methods: Canine periodontal ligament stem cells (PDLSC), alveolar bone stem cells (ABSC) and bone marrow stem cells(BMSC) were isolated and cultured. Cell differentiations (osteogenic, adipogenic and chondrogenic) and surface antigens (CD146, STRO-1, CD44, CD90, CD45, CD34) were evaluated in vitro. The cells were transplanted into the subcutaneous space of nude mice to assess capacity for ectopic bone formation at 8 weeks after implantation. Results: PDLSC, ABSC and BMSC differentiated into osteoblasts, adipocytes and chondrocytes under defined condition. The cells expressed the mesenchymal stem cell markers differently. When transplanted into athymic nude mice, these three kinds of cells with hydroxyapatite /${\beta}$- tricalcium phosphate (HA/TCP) carrier showed ectopic bone formation. Conclusions: This study demonstrated that canine dental stem cells have stemness like bone marrow stem cells. Transplantation of these cells might be used as a therapeutic approach for dental stem cell-mediated periodontal tissue regeneration.