Differential p16 expression levels in the liver, hepatocytes and hepatocellular cell lines

Barbara Kramar; Dušan Šuput; Irina Milisav

doi:10.7717/peerj.12358

Differential p16 expression levels in the liver, hepatocytes and hepatocellular cell lines

PeerJ. 2021 Nov 2:9:e12358. doi: 10.7717/peerj.12358. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Barbara Kramar¹, Dušan Šuput¹, Irina Milisav^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Medicine, Institute of Pathophysiology, Zaloska 4, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
² University of Ljubljana, Laboratory of oxidative stress research, Faculty of Health Sciences, Zdravstvena pot 5, Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Abstract

Background: One of the most frequently deleted genes in cancer is CDKN2A encoding p16. This protein is often overexpressed in senescent cells, while its suppression can bypass the oncogene-induced senescence to enable transformation and tumorigenesis. The roles of the protein p16 are recently being expanded from the cell cycle progression regulator to the cellular regulator interacting in several different pathways. Yet data on its liver and liver cells' expression are inconclusive.

Methods: The expression of the p16 gene in liver and liver cells was determined by RT-qPCR and compared to its protein amounts by western blotting.

Results: p16 is expressed at low levels in the liver and rat hepatocytes. Its expression varies from none to the considerable levels in the examined hepatocellular carcinoma cell lines (FaO and HepG2) and in immortalized mouse hepatocytes. Such significant expression differences of an important cellular regulator warrant the need to closely examine the differences in biochemical pathways correlated with the p16 expression when using hepatocytes and hepatoma liver models.

Keywords: FaO; Gene expression; HepG2; Hepatocytes; Hepatoma; Liver; p16.

Grants and funding

This research was funded by H2020-MSCA-ITN:721236 TREATMENT project and from the Slovenian Research Agency (research core funding No. P3-0019). BK acknowledges the financial support of the Word Federation of Scientists within the framework of the Slovenian Science Foundation. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.