Table 3.

Role of HBx protein in hepatocarcinogenesis^a

Mechanism	Comment	Reference(s)
Inhibition of p53	Inhibition of sequence-specific binding of p53	279
Centrosome abnormalities	Induction of multipolar spindle formation	84
Telomerase activity	Increases telomerase activity and expression of hTERT	164
Inhibition of apoptosis	Activates p38/MAPK pathway and upregulates survivin, an antiapoptotic protein	143
Jak1/STAT signaling	Activates Jak1/STAT pathway	152
TGF-β	Shifts TGF-β signaling from tumor suppression to oncogenesis	194
Defective DNA repair	Defective nucleotide excision repair	217
Hypermethylation of TSGs	Induction of DNA methyltransferases and suppression of TSGs	150, 211

^aAbbreviations: hTERT, human telomerase reverse transcriptase; TGF-β, transforming growth factor β; MAPK, mitogen-activation protein kinase; TSG, tumor suppressor gene.