ArticleCancer research2007
Concomitant activation of the JAK/STAT, PI3K/AKT, and ERK signaling is involved in leptin-mediated promotion of invasion and migration of hepatocellular carcinoma cells.
Article in Cancer research, 2007. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 234 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
234 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 469 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effects of Essential Oils and Fragrant Compounds on Appetite: A Systematic Review.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Pooled it
- Pooled it
- A meta-analysis of reference values of leptin concentration in healthy postmenopausal women.PloS one · 2013Pooled it
- Skeletal muscle quality predicts overall survival in advanced liver hepatocellular carcinoma treated with SIRT and sorafenib: A subanalysis of the SORAMIC trial.United European gastroenterology journal · 2024Trial
- Prognostic role of radiomics-based body composition analysis for the 1-year survival for hepatocellular carcinoma patients.Journal of cachexia, sarcopenia and muscle · 2023Trial
- Role of adipocytes and their derived extracellular vesicles in the progression, diagnosis and treatment of liver diseases (Review).International journal of molecular medicine · 2026Review
- Remodeling the Immune Landscape: How Obesity-Induced SASPs Create a Pro-Tumorigenic Niche.Current obesity reports · 2026Review
- GLP-1 receptor agonists at the crossroads of diabetes, hepatic steatosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma.Internal and emergency medicine · 2026Review
- Gastrointestinal cancers in women: The role of sex hormones.Indian journal of gastroenterology : official journal of the Indian Society of Gastroenterology · 2026Review
- Obesity and thyroid cancer: mechanisms and clinical implications.Frontiers in nutrition · 2026Review
- Antitumor Effects of Metformin in Squamous Cell Carcinoma under Leptin Treatment Conditions.Preventive nutrition and food science · 2025Article
- Lifestyle factors in hepatocellular carcinoma: From pathogenesis to prognosis.World journal of clinical oncology · 2025Review
- Therapeutic Potential of Anti-Diabetes Drugs and Anti-Dyslipidemia Drugs to Mitigate Head and Neck Cancer Risk in Metabolic Syndrome.CNS neuroscience & therapeutics · 2025Review
- Study on the mechanism of hyperoside in affecting the biological progression and radiosensitivity of esophageal carcinoma by modulating the STAT3/AKT/ERK pathway.Biomolecules & biomedicine · 2025Article
- The guinea pig serves as an alternative model to study human preimplantation development.Nature cell biology · 2025Article
- Apelin/APJ: Another Player in the Cancer Biology Network.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- Unraveling the mechanism of core prescription in primary liver cancer: integrative analysis through data mining, network pharmacology, and molecular simulation.In silico pharmacology · 2025Article
- Apelin (APLN) is a biomarker contributing to the diagnosis and prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Interleukin-1β Signaling Contributes to Cell Cycle Arrest and Apoptotic Cell Death by Leptin via Modulation of AKT and p38MAPK in Hepatocytes.Biomolecules & therapeutics · 2024Article
- Review
174 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Various epidemiologic studies have shown that obesity is associated with hepatocellular carcinoma. Leptin, the key player in the regulation of energy balance and body weight control, also acts as a growth factor on certain organs in both normal and disease states. It is plausible that leptin acts to promote hepatocellular carcinogenesis directly affecting malignant properties of liver cancer cells. However, a direct role for leptin in hepatocellular carcinoma has not been shown. In this study, we analyzed the role of leptin and the mechanism(s) underlying its action in hepatocellular carcinoma cells, which express both short and long isoforms of leptin receptors. Treatment with leptin resulted in increased proliferation of both HepG2 and Huh7 cells and involves activation of signal transducers and activators of transcription 3 (STAT3), AKT, and extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) signaling pathways. Leptin-induced phosphorylation of ERK and AKT was dependent on Janus-activated kinase (JAK)/STAT activation. Intriguingly, we also found that leptin potently induces invasion of hepatocellular carcinoma cells in Matrigel invasion and electric cell-substrate impedance-sensing assays. Leptin-stimulated invasion was effectively blocked by pharmacologic inhibitors of JAK/STAT and, to a lesser extent, by ERK and phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) inhibition. Importantly, leptin also induced the migration of both HepG2 and Huh7 cells on fibronectin matrix. Inhibition of JAK/STAT, ERK, and PI3K activation using pharmacologic inhibitors effectively blocked leptin-induced migration of HepG2 and Huh7 cells. Taken together, these data indicate that leptin promotes hepatocellular carcinoma growth, invasiveness, and migration and implicate the JAK/STAT pathway as a critical mediator of leptin action. Our findings have potential clinical implications for hepatocellular carcinoma progression in obese patients.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.