The research group of Professor Fan ZHU in Wuhan University found that variant 1 of KIAA0101 played an important role in late phase of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), promoting HCC cells survival through regulating the function of p53. The paper was published on the international notable magazine about liver disease-Hepatology (Impact factor: 12.003). KIAA0101 overexpression was detected in numerous malignant solid tumors and involved in tumor progression; however, the correlation between KIAA0101 expression level and human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) was controversial. Their data revealed abnormal expression of the KIAA0101 transcript variant 1 (KIAA0101 tv1) in HCCs, especially during stage 3-4. And they found doxorubicin (Adriamycin, ADR) treatment down-regulated expression of the KIAA0101 tv1 and increased acetylation level of the p53 protein. Additionally, KIAA0101 tv1 prevented cells from apoptosis caused by ADR through suppressing the acetylation of p53 at Lys382. Immunoprecipitation analysis and mammalian two-hybrid assay indicated that KIAA0101 tv1 bound to the transactivation region (1-42 amino acids) of p53 and strongly inhibits its transcriptional activity. Taken together, these data suggest that KIAA0101 tv1 played an important role in the late stage of metastatic HCC and prevented apoptosis after chemotherapeutic drug treatment through inhibiting the transcriptional activity of the p53 gene. They considered that KIAA0101 tv1 may function as a regulator, promoting cell survival in HCC through regulating the function of p53. Suppression of the KIAA0101 tv1 function is likely to be a promising strategy to develop novel cancer therapeutic drugs.

Professor Fan ZHU, the Chair and Professor of the department of medical microbiology, mainly studies the role of virus in the host cells. His interesting areas lie in two: 1) Study of Human Endogenous Retroviruses (HERVs) in multiple sclerosis and Schizophrenia; 2) Study of HBV in HCC. Dr. Lijuan LIU is the first author of the study. The whole article is available at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hep.25834/abstract