p38β, A Novel Regulatory Target of Pokemon in Hepatic Cells

International Journal of Molecular Sciences

Zhe Chen¹  Feng Liu²  Nannan Zhang²  Deliang Cao³  Min Liu²  Ying Tan² 

[1] Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China; E-Mail:;The Ministry-Province Jointly Constructed Base for State Key Lab—Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Chemical Biology, Graduate School at Shenzhen, Tsinghua University, Shenzhen 518055, China; E-Mails:;Department of Medical Microbiology, Immunology & Cell Biology, Simmons Cooper Cancer Institute, Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, Springfield, IL 62702, USA; E-Mail:

关键词: Pokemon;    p38β;    transcription factor;    hepatic cell;    SB202190;   

DOI  :  10.3390/ijms140713511

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Pokemon is an important proto-oncogene involved in various biological processes and cancer development, such as cell differentiation, tumorigenesis and metastasis. Pokemon is recognized as a transcription factor localized upstream of several oncogenes, regulating their expression. p38MAPKs act as key regulatory factors in cellular signaling pathways associated with inflammatory responses, cell proliferation, differentiation and survival. p38β, a member of p38MAPK family, is closely correlated with tumorigenesis, but the mechanism of activation remains unclear. In this study, we found overexpression of Pokemon promoted the growth, migration and invasion of HepG2 cells. However, a p38 inhibitor SB202190 efficiently attenuated the promoting effect of Pokemon in the HepG2 cells. Targeted expression or silencing of Pokemon changed cellular p38β protein level and phosphorylation of downstream ATF2 in the p38 signaling pathway. Both dual luciferase report assay and ChIP assay suggested that p38β is a novel regulatory target of the transcription factor Pokemon and positively regulated by Pokemon in hepatic cells.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2013 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland