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©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Sep 28, 2015; 21(36): 10367-10374
Published online Sep 28, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i36.10367
Published online Sep 28, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i36.10367
Ursodeoxycholic acid induces apoptosis in hepatocellular carcinoma xenografts in mice
Hui Liu, Hong-Wei Xu, Ya Huang, Guo-Qing Han, Tie-Jun Liang, Li-Li Wei, Cheng-Yong Qin, Department of Gastroenterology, Shandong Provincial Hospital Affiliated to Shandong University, Jinan 250021, Shandong Province, China
Yu-Zhen Zhang, Department of Surgery, Heze Peony District People’s Hospital, Heze 274000, Shandong Province, China
Cheng-Kun Qin, Department of General Surgery, Shandong Provincial Hospital Affiliated to Shandong University, Jinan 250021, Shandong Province, China
Author contributions: Liu H, Xu HW, Zhang YZ and Huang Y designed the experiments; Liu H, Xu HW, Zhang YZ, Huang Y, Han GQ and Liang TJ performed the research; Wei LL and Qin CY contributed new reagents/analytic tools; Liu H, Xu HW, Huang Y and Liang TJ analyzed the data; Liu H and Xu HW wrote the paper; and Qin CK revised the manuscript.
Supported by Grants from the Shandong Provincial Science and Technology Committee of China, No. 2013GSF11852; and the Shandong Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China, No. ZR2014HM106.
Institutional animal care and use committee statement: All animal experiments were carried out with approval by an ethics committee in accordance with the National Institutes of Health Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals and further approved by the Institutional Care Committee (Shandong University, Jinan, China).
Conflict-of-interest statement: None of the authors have any possible conflicts of interest.
Data sharing statement: There are no additional data available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Dr. Cheng-Kun Qin, Department of General Surgery, Shandong Provincial Hospital Affiliated to Shandong University, No. 324 Jingwu Weiqi Road, Jinan 250021, Shandong Province, China. qin_chengkun@163.com
Telephone: +86-531-68778365 Fax: +86-531-87068344
Received: January 14, 2015
Peer-review started: January 16, 2015
First decision: April 24, 2015
Revised: May 23, 2015
Accepted: August 28, 2015
Article in press: August 31, 2015
Published online: September 28, 2015
Processing time: 256 Days and 13.3 Hours
Peer-review started: January 16, 2015
First decision: April 24, 2015
Revised: May 23, 2015
Accepted: August 28, 2015
Article in press: August 31, 2015
Published online: September 28, 2015
Processing time: 256 Days and 13.3 Hours
Core Tip
Core tip: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) ranks as the sixth most common cancer worldwide. Prognosis of HCC patients remains poor, however, due to the lack of effective therapies. In this study, ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA) was investigated as a potential chemotherapeutic agent in a mouse model of HCC. Tumor growth was inhibited by increasing concentrations of UDCA over a 21-d period, and the effect was elicited through apoptosis. UDCA is thus a candidate chemopreventive and chemotherapeutic agent for HCC.