Browsing by Subject "Stemness"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
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    EFNA4 deletion suppresses the migration, invasion, stemness, and angiogenesis of gastric cancer cells through the inactivation of Pygo2/Wnt signaling
    (Universidad de Murcia, Departamento de Biologia Celular e Histiologia, 2025) Wang, Xian; Zhang, Tiran; Yu, Rong
    Gastric cancer represents an aggressive malignancy and a leading contributor to cancer death. Ephrin-A4 (EFNA4) has been proposed to be related to the immune microenvironment and prognosis of gastric cancer. This study was undertaken to discuss the participation and mechanism of EFNA4 in the development of gastric cancer. RT-qPCR and western blot examined EFNA4 and Pygopus2 (Pygo2) expression in gastric cancer cells. After transfection of EFNA4 interference plasmids or co-transfection of EFNA4 interference plasmids and Pygo2 overexpression plasmids, cell proliferation was detected by the CCK-8 method and EDU staining. Wound healing, Transwell, TUNEL, and endothelial cell tube formation assays detected cell migration, invasion, apoptosis, and angiogenesis, respectively. Western blot examined the expression of metastasis-, apoptosis-, angiogenesis-, and Wnt signaling-associated proteins. Cell stemness was estimated by the sphere formation assay, RT-qPCR, and western blot. Through the experimental data, it was noticed that EFNA4 expression was increased in gastric cancer cells. Knockdown of EFNA4 suppressed the proliferation, migration, invasion, angiogenesis as well as stemness while aggravating the apoptosis of gastric cancer cells. Also, EFNA4 depletion reduced Pygo2 protein expression and then inactivated Wnt/β-catenin signaling. Further elevation of Pygo2 reversed the impacts of EFNA4 silencing on Wnt/β-catenin signaling, cell proliferation, apoptosis, migration, invasion, angiogenesis as well as stemness in gastric cancer. Accordingly, the knockdown of EFNA4 might downregulate Pygo2 and inactivate Wnt/β-catenin signaling to exert protective effects against gastric cancer
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    Transposon-based reprogramming to induced pluripotency
    (Universidad de Murcia. Departamento de Biología Celular e Histología, 2015) Kumar, Dharmendra; Talluri, Thirumala R.; Anand, Taruna; Kues, Wilfried A.
    Induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells represent a recent innovation in the field of stem cells. Commonly, iPS cells are generated by viral transduction of core reprogramming genes, such as Oct4, Sox2, Klf4, c-Myc, Nanog and Lin28. However, integrating viruses, like retro- and lentiviral vectors, may cause insertional mutagenesis and may increase the risk of tumor formation. Therefore, alternative methods which avoid these safety concerns are intensively investigated. Here, we review the current status of transposon-based methods to induce pluripotency. DNA transposons are non-viral elements, which can be effectively integrated into a genome by their corresponding transposase enzyme. The advantages of transposon-based gene transfer are their increased safety, their large cargo capacity, their relatively simple design, and the availability of hyper-active and mutated transposase enzymes. For example, integration-deficient, excisioncompetent transposase variants allow the complete removal of the reprogramming transposon after successful reprogramming to obtain transposon-free reprogrammed cells. Transposon-based reprogramming broaden the toolbox for iPS cell production and will advance the establishment of safe, non-viral methods.