[23] found that reduced PinX1 expression is highly correlated to the poor prognostic factors (such as lymph node metastasis and distant metastasis) in patients with ovarian cancer and

AR-13324 considered as an independent factor for poor prognosis of patients with epithelial ovarian cancer; Wang et al. [24] constructed and transfected PinX1 and PinX1-siRNA eukaryotic expression vectors into gastric cancer cells and found that downregulation of PinX1 by transfection of PinX1-siRNA vector significantly enhanced telomerase activity compared with that of cells transfected with PinX1 vector, suggesting that PinX1 is a telomerase inhibitor and inhibits tumorigenesis and development possibly through telomerase/telomere pathway; Zhou et al. [25] believed that PinX1 inhibits telomerase activity by binding to hTERT through its TID domain, which consequently results in telomere shortening, cell senescence and increase of tumorigenicity in nude mice; Banik et al. [26] analyzed the

relationship among PinX1, hTERT and hTR, and found that PinX1 can directly bind to hTERT and hTR, but the binding of PinX1 to hTR is dependent on the presence of hTERT. Inhibition of telomerase activity by PinX1 requires its binding to both hTERT and hTR. By contrast, some studies indicate selleck chemical that PinX1 expression is positively correlated to telomerase activity. For examples, Sun et al. [12] found that PinX1 mRNA level is BI 10773 ic50 closely related to hTERT mRNA level in differentiated acute promyelocytic leukemia cells and altered PinX1 expression is secondary response to changes of hTERT expression. In addition, some studies found that PinX1 is not the key factor in inhibition of telomerase activity and its function is rather related

to gene polymorphism than to telomerase activity. For example, studies [14] on 159 cases of hereditary prostate cancer identified 39 polymorphisms during PinX1 sequencing; studies [15] on gastrointestinal cancer also found a missense mutation (AGC/TGC) out of 254 codons in 1 case of colon cancer and 1 case of esophageal cancer. The authors suggested that this mutation may be a benign polymorphism because neither de-hypermethylation on its promoter region nor 5-N-2-deoxycytidine treatment of a cell line affected PinX1 expression. Buspirone HCl In addition, Chang et al. [16] analyzed the function of PinX1 in medulloblastoma and found that 11 polymorphisms in its 7 exons and their splicing sites by direct sequencing and that telomerase activity was not inhibited and related to PinX1, indicating PinX1 did not play a key role in the process of medulloblastoma. Overall, the mechanisms of PinX1 on telomerase/telomere are complicated and may differ in different tumors. Recently, researches on PinX1 dynamics and function have also advanced our knowledges. Yuan et al. [17] have shown that PinX1 is located in the nucleolus and telomeres in the interphase and gathered around chromosome and outer plate of kinetochore in mitosis phase.