Overview of cadmium effects. (1) Cadmium is accumulated into HepG2 cells [21] and indirectly causes a genotoxic damage [22, 23] (data not shown); (2) the p53 is visualized into the nucleus, as expected, to exert its function of transcription factor; (3) the p21 Cip1/WAF-1 gene (p21 mRNA) is upregulated, although no protein upregulation is observed possibly due to a posttranscriptional regulation by miRNA-372; (4) no cell cycle arrest is observed, thus leading to the transmission of DNA damage and ultimately to cancer.
