BTG2/TIS21/PC3 (B cell translocation gene 2) has been known as a p53 target gene and functions as a tumor suppressor in carcinogenesis of thymus, prostate, kidney, and liver. Although it has been known that the expression of BTG2 /TIS21/PC3 is induced during chemotherapy-mediated apoptosis in cancer cells, a role of BTG2 /TIS21/PC3 in cell death remains to be elucidated. In this study, the mechanism and role of BTG2 involved in the enhancement of doxorubicin (
TIS21(12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate-inducible sequence 21) was first identified as one of immediate early genes (1) in mice 3T3 fibroblasts when treated with 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate (2). Since then, PC3 (pheochromocytoma cell 3) was isolated as an immediate early response gene when activated by nerve growth factor at the onset of neuronal differentiation in rat PC12 cells (3). The human homolog of TIS21, named BTG2 (B cell translocation gene 2), was cloned from a cDNA library of human lymphoblastoid cells as a gene associated with DNA damage response and contains p53 response elements in its 5Ј-flanking (Ϫ74 to Ϫ112) region (4).We previously reported that TIS21 expression was low in thymic carcinoma developed in the SV40 large T antigen transgenic mice but high in normal thymus, suggesting anticarcinogenic activity of TIS21 in thymus (5). Expressions of TIS21 in renal proximal tubule and prostate acini are lost also in the renal carcinoma and the early stage of carcinogenesis in prostate (6, 7), respectively. Consistent with these findings, Boiko et al. (8) recently ascertained BTG2 as a tumor suppressor by showing that BTG2 is a major downstream effector of p53-dependent proliferation arrest of mouse and human fibroblasts transduced with oncogenic Ras and that repression of BTG2 regulates the activities of cyclin D1 and cyclin E and phosphorylation of pRB, thus inducing neoplastic transformation of primary human fibroblasts. TIS21 has been known to work also independently of pRB and p53 in cancer cells regulating G 1 /S arrest and G 2 /M arrest by inhibiting synthesis of cyclin E and cdk4 (9), as well as interaction with cyclin B1 and the cdk1 complex (10), respectively. Moreover, persistent expression of TIS21 induces the loss of mitochondrial membrane potential differences in U937 cells (11), and transfection of TIS21 gene to Huh7 hepatoma cells significantly reduces in vivo and in vitro tumorigenesis by inhibiting feedback regulation between cyclin B1 and FoxM1 transcription factor (11), and the expression of BTG2 in human liver cancer is much lower than that of the surrounding tissues. Collectively, these findings indicate that TIS21 controls cellular process as an inhibitor of cell division cycle and a tumor suppressor, thus evading cancer development independent of p53.The level of reactive oxygen species (ROS) 2 is controlled by multiple interacting components. Among them, superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione peroxidase 1 (GPx), and catalase are the primary antioxidant enzymes in mammalian tissues (12,13). SOD catalyzes di...