On September 26, 2014, the Society of Toxicology (SOT) Special Interest Group, Association of Scientists of Indian Origin (ASIO), held a very successful webinar on “New Frontiers of Chemical Carcinogenesis.” The speaker Udayan Apte is from the Department of Pharmacology, Toxicology and Therapeutics at the University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City. Dr. Apte focused mainly on the Hepatocyte Nuclear Factor-4α (HNF4α) and its role in Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC). The HNF4α is an orphan receptor known to bind fatty acids. He initially started with a simple hypothesis that the expression of HNF4α inhibits the proliferation of mature liver cells. He observed using a knockdown mouse model the the deletion of HNF4α resulted in abnormal fatty liver with the increased hepatocyte proliferation. Further investigation with the chemical carcinogen diethyl nitrosamine (DEN) showed a significant increase in the number and size of hepatic tumors.
Dr. Apte identified using high-throughput screening methods that a number of genes up-regulated related to cancer pathogenesis, cell cycle control, and cell proliferation. Dr. Apte discussed how the function of HNF4α could be progressively lost in HCC using datasets from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) Database. At the end, Dr. Apte summarized how the target gene signature of HNF4α could be used as a new tool to identify hepatocellular carcinoma.
There were 110 participants representing seven different countries (Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Taiwan, and United States) attending the webinar. The webinar was fully funded through Webinar Funding offered through the SOT Subcommittee for Non-SOT Meeting Funding. The webinar was assisted by SOT Staff Tierre Miller, Rosibel Alvarenga, and Raul Suarez. The ASIO webinar committee includes Dr. Sainath Babu (Chair), Dr. Sachin Devi, Dr. Satheesh Anand, Dr. Sudheer Beednagari, Ms. Shirisha Chittiboyina, and Mr. Vijay Kale. The complete recording of this webinar is available on the ASIO website. To learn more about this SOT Special Interest Group, please visit the ASIO website.