Promoter methylation-independent reactivation of PAX1 by curcumin and resveratrol is mediated by UHRF1

Paired box gene1 (PAX1) is essential for normal chordate development and has been recently characterised to be a tumour suppressor gene which is frequently hypermethylated in different cancer types. We investigated the reactivation of PAX1 using curcumin and resveratrol in HeLa, SiHa and Caski cell lines and role of hypermethylation in 39 CpG sites of PAX1 promoter from −6 to −286 region in regulating its expression. Curcumin in HeLa and SiHa cells and resveratrol in Caski cells caused significant (P < 0.01) reactivation of PAX1 expression as shown by qRT PCR, but reversal of promoter hypermethylation was not observed across the three cell lines. Interestingly, even positive control 5-aza-2′-deoxycytidine was not found to be effective to cause demethylation of CpG sites under consideration suggesting the promoter region to be resistant towards hypomethylating effects as shown by bisulphite sequencing. However, a striking correlation between PAX1 reactivation and Ubiquitin-like with PHD and RING finger domains 1 (UHRF1) downregulation after treatment with curcumin and resveratrol in HeLa, SiHa and Caski cell lines was observed which was further confirmed after transient silencing of UHRF1 expression. PAX1 reexpression was also obtained in Caski and SiHa cell lines after treatment with sodium butyrate, a histone deacetylase inhibitor, suggesting that PAX1 reactivation by curcumin and resveratrol may be due to their effect on histone deacetylase mediated through downregulation of UHRF1 which can regulate both DNA methylation and histone acetylation.