Human hepatocellular carcinoma is one of the most common cancers in the world. We previously showed that dbpA, a member of the Y box family of proteins, could Accelerate the process of inflammation-induced hepatocarcinogenesis, and that dbpA is more abundantly expressed in hepatocellular carcinoma than in non-tumorous tissue. In this study, to clarify the mechanism by which expression of dbpA is enhanced in the proliferative state, we examined the transcriptional activity of the dbpA promoter region. We focused on the sequence 5'-TTTGGGGC-3' (-8 to -1 in the promoter region) resembling the E2F binding site (one base mismatch, TFSEARCH score 86.2). By overexpressing E2F1 in Huh-7 cells, transcriptional activity of dbpA was significantly increased, and this increase was abolished by mutating or deleting this sequence. Thus, expression of dbpA was positively regulated by E2F1, suggesting that one of the effects of E2F1 on cell proliferation might be mediated by dbpA at the carcinogenesis step. (C) 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.