Disease relevance of HEPN1

• A novel domain - HEPN (higher eukarytoes and prokaryotes nucleotide-binding domain) - found in several bacterial species is also present in the human protein, sacsin, a chaperonin implicated in an early-onset neurodegenerative disease [1].

High impact information on HEPN1

• HEPN: a common domain in bacterial drug resistance and human neurodegenerative proteins [1].
• BACKGROUND/AIMS: Previously, we reported on gene HEPN1 that was silenced in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and its capability of arresting cell growth [2].
• When transfected into HepG2 cells, HEPN1 reduced cell viability to 37.5+/-2.5% (P=0.001), and induced apoptosis with typical morphological changes as demonstrated by microscopy and Annexin V assay [3].
• HEPN1, a novel gene that is frequently down-regulated in hepatocellular carcinoma, suppresses cell growth and induces apoptosis in HepG2 cells [3].
• RESULTS: Significant downregulation of HEPN1 (P<0.0001) was detected in 22/23 of HCC patients tested [3].

Biological context of HEPN1

• Gene HEPN1 maps to chromosome 11q24.2; and the predicted gene product, a 10-kDa peptide with 88 amino acids, has no homology to known proteins [3].
• Transfection studies were carried out by expressing HEPN1, V5-fused HEPN1, and green fluorescent protein-fused HEPN1, individually, in HepG2 cells [3].
• In this study, we aimed to evaluate HEPN1 gene expression in HCC patients, to characterise and to explore the functional significance of HEPN1 in vitro [3].

Analytical, diagnostic and therapeutic context of HEPN1

• METHODS: One-step reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and real-time RT-PCR were employed to determine HEPN1 expression in 23 paired (HCC and the adjacent non-HCC) liver specimens [3].

References