الفهرس 
IntroductionOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
 |  | from | 165 |  |  |
| | | from | 165 | | |
Abstract
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the major health problems and the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Moreover, its survival rate is poor and the current therapeutic routes are very limited. Therefore, unusual and new therapeutic approaches are now obligatory. Trial of new cancer therapy that depends on apoptosis induction in the cancer cells is considered a new era in cancer treatment. Trichinella spiralis (T. spiralis) is a unique nematode that infects the human skeletal muscle cells and converts them into its own cells that are called nurse cells via its execretory/ secretory proteins. The nurse cells are characterized by basophilic cytoplasm and show other different features of apoptosis (Boonmars et al., 2004a; Wu et al., 2005). Apoptosis is mediated by mitochondrial and death receptor pathways (Wu et al., 2008b). Also, many apoptotic genes such as p53 and BAX were expressed in the basophilic cell, suggesting the involvement of these genes in nurse cell formation (Boonmars et al., 2004a). Some genes such as SMAD2 and SMAD3 act as tumor suppressor genes and are up-regulated during T. spiralis infection (Wu et al., 2008b). The evasion of apoptosis is one of the main changes of the cell that transforms it into malignant one. So, T. spiralis infection can inhibit tumor growth by inducing cancer cell apoptosis (Hanahan and Weinberg, 2000).