We recently confirmed that angiotensin II (Ang II) type 1 receptor (AT1R) was overexpressed in hepatocellular carcinoma tissue using a murine hepatoma model.
Since a crosstalk between AGE and angiotensin II (Ang II) has been proposed in the pathogenesis of accelerated atherosclerosis in diabetes, we examined here whether and how telmisartan, a unique Ang II type 1 receptor blocker (ARB) with peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma (PPAR-gamma)-modulating activity, could inhibit AGE-induced CRP expression in a human hepatoma cell line, Hep3B cells.
We also show that transcriptional activity of reporter constructs containing human angiotensinogen gene promoter with nucleoside A at -20 is increased on cotransfection of an expression vector containing human estrogen receptor-alpha coding sequence in human hepatoma cells (HepG2) followed by estrogen treatment.
In the present study, we analyzed the human angiotensinogen proximal promoter region by means of Chloramphenicol acetyltransferase assays, and suggested that the region from -106 to +44 is sufficient for hepatoma cell line (HepG2)-specific expression.
Our results indicate that angiotensinogen mRNA is present in human hepatoma (HepG2) cells and its levels are decreased when treated with hepatocyte stimulating factor.