Identification, expression, and methylation of miR-7110 and its involvement in type 1 diabetes mellitus

Expression levels of microRNA-7110 in oral squamous cell carcinoma

BACKGROUND

Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is a leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide, and it is responsible for more than 95% of head and neck cancers. Despite advancements in research and treatment, patient's survival has not significantly increased in recent years. On the other hand, microRNAs (miRNAs) are a major class of small non-coding RNAs that regulate gene expression of the target mRNAs. Thus, understanding the mechanisms behind OSCC formation and progression may lead to the identification of potential diagnostic biomarkers and therapeutic molecules for the treatment of OSCC. The aim of the current study was to analyze expression levels of miR-7110 in OSCC tissues and adjacent normal tissues as it could provide insights into its potential role in OSCC development or progression as a valuable biomarker.

METHODS

A total of 20 OSCC and adjacent normal tissues were collected from the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Saveetha Dental College and Hospitals (Chennai, India). The tissues were processed for hematoxylin and eosin staining and expression studies. The data were shown as mean±standard deviation and P<0.05 was considered statistically significant.

RESULTS

Our histopathological observations revealed an invasive malignant epithelial neoplasm with malignant epithelial cells exhibiting features of severe epithelial dysplasia invading the connective tissue stroma as islands, strands and cords with varying degrees of differentiation. Our results have also revealed that the expression levels of miR-7110 were found to be significantly higher in OSCC samples when compared to the normal tissue.

CONCLUSIONS

We can preliminarily conclude that based on the increased expression of miR-7110 in OSCC tissue samples, they can be used as an early diagnostic or prognostic biomarker and/or a therapeutic target for the treatment of OSCC even though more focused research in that direction is needed.

Gene expression analysis reveals diabetes-related gene signatures

BACKGROUND

Diabetes is a spectrum of metabolic diseases affecting millions of people worldwide. The loss of pancreatic β-cell mass by either autoimmune destruction or apoptosis, in type 1-diabetes (T1D) and type 2-diabetes (T2D), respectively, represents a pathophysiological process leading to insulin deficiency. Therefore, therapeutic strategies focusing on restoring β-cell mass and β-cell insulin secretory capacity may impact disease management. This study took advantage of powerful integrative bioinformatic tools to scrutinize publicly available diabetes-associated gene expression data to unveil novel potential molecular targets associated with β-cell dysfunction.

METHODS

A comprehensive literature search for human studies on gene expression alterations in the pancreas associated with T1D and T2D was performed. A total of 6 studies were selected for data extraction and for bioinformatic analysis. Pathway enrichment analyses of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were conducted, together with protein-protein interaction networks and the identification of potential transcription factors (TFs). For noncoding differentially expressed RNAs, microRNAs (miRNAs) and long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs), which exert regulatory activities associated with diabetes, identifying target genes and pathways regulated by these RNAs is fundamental for establishing a robust regulatory network.

RESULTS

Comparisons of DEGs among the 6 studies showed 59 genes in common among 4 or more studies. Besides alterations in mRNA, it was possible to identify differentially expressed miRNA and lncRNA. Among the top transcription factors (TFs), HIPK2, KLF5, STAT1 and STAT3 emerged as potential regulators of the altered gene expression. Integrated analysis of protein-coding genes, miRNAs, and lncRNAs pointed out several pathways involved in metabolism, cell signaling, the immune system, cell adhesion, and interactions. Interestingly, the GABAergic synapse pathway emerged as the only common pathway to all datasets.

CONCLUSIONS

This study demonstrated the power of bioinformatics tools in scrutinizing publicly available gene expression data, thereby revealing potential therapeutic targets like the GABAergic synapse pathway, which holds promise in modulating α-cells transdifferentiation into β-cells.

Association between polymorphism rs2421943 of the insulin-degrading enzyme and schizophrenia: Preliminary report

BACKGROUND

Insulin-degrading enzyme (IDE) is an important gene in studies of the pathophysiology of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Recent studies have suggested a possible link between type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and the pathophysiology of schizophrenia (SZ). At the same time, significant changes in insulin-degrading enzyme (IDE) gene expression have been found in the brains of people with schizophrenia. These findings highlight the need to further investigate the role of IDE in schizophrenia pathogenesis.

METHODS

We enrolled 733 participants from the Czech Republic, including 383 patients with schizophrenia and 350 healthy controls. Our study focused on the single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs2421943 in the IDE gene, which has previously been associated with the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease. The SNP was analyzed using the PCR-RFLP method.

RESULTS

The G allele of the rs2421943 polymorphism was found to significantly increase the risk of developing SZ (p < 0.01) when a gender-based analysis showed that both AG and GG genotypes were associated with a more than 1.55 times increased risk of SZ in females (p < 0.03) but not in males. Besides, we identified a potential binding site at the G allele locus for has-miR-7110-5p, providing a potential mechanism for the observed association.

CONCLUSION

Our results confirm the role of the IDE gene in schizophrenia pathogenesis and suggest that future research should investigate the relationship between miRNA and estrogen influence on IDE expression in schizophrenia pathogenesis.

Identification of miR-802-5p and its involvement in type 2 diabetes mellitus

MicroRNAs (miRNA) are recently discovered endogenous, small noncoding RNAs (of 22 nucleotides) that play pivotal roles in gene regulation. They are involved in post-transcriptional control of gene expression. miRNAs are emerging as important regulators of cell proliferation, development, cancer formation, stress responses, cell death and physiological conditions. Increasing evidence has demonstrated the human miRNAs bind to their target mRNA sequences with perfect or near-perfect sequence complementarily. This provides a powerful strategy for discovering potential type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) targets and gives the probability to exploit them for diagnostic and therapeutic causes. About 6% of the world population is affected by T2DM, and it is recognized as a global epidemic by the World Health Organization. At present there is no valid biomarker to control or manage T2DM. Therefore, the present study applied a mature sequence of miRNAs from publicly accessible databases to identify the miRNA from T2DM expressed sequence tags, and the results are detailed and discussed below.

Implications of microRNA 21 and its involvement in the treatment of different type of arthritis

Arthritis is a kind of autoimmune disease, which includes many circumstances that affect joints, the tissues surrounding the joints, and other connective tissues. Osteoarthritis (OA) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) are the common arthritis seen in many populations. Researchers have made extensive studies on all types of arthritis, novel drugs are being developed by many laboratories, but yet no treatment option is available for these diseases and need new insight into the molecular pathways and pathophysiology of all types of arthritis. MicroRNAs (miRNAs), a class of non-coding RNAs, have shown to be played a plenty of roles in both a suppressive and a promoting role in disease pathogenesis and progression. Among the classes of microRNAs, miR-21 is a widespread miRNA commonly upregulated in many diseases and suggesting that it plays an important role in cell proliferation, apoptosis, and invasion. It is highly expressed in osteoclast precursors and the pro-osteoclastogenic nature of miR-21 makes it a promising candidate as a therapeutic target to treat bone-related disorders. Up to now, there are few papers that demonstrate the role of miR-21 in arthritis and related bone disorders and the number of studies related to different types of arthritis is sparse. Therefore, the main thrust of this paper is to provide an overview of the current clinical evidence and significance of miR-21 in arthritis and bone-related inflammation disorders. We summarize the important research findings surrounding the role of miR-21 and its involvement in the treatment of different types of arthritis.

Methylation dependent microRNA 1285-5p and sterol carrier proteins 2 in type 2 diabetes mellitus

Diabetes mellitus (DM) is one of the severe metabolic diseases found in all types of people's lives in lower, middle and high income countries. It is suggested that the prevalence of diabetes is increasing in many countries and most of the cases are type 2 DM, clinical treatments are changing now to manage type 2 DM, however, up-to-date, there is no diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic target for type 2 DM. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) is one of a non-protein coding RNAs that have been regulating a wide range cellular processes and induce the development of many diseases. Most of the researchers concluded that miRNAs involvement is an important process in a broad range of signaling pathways such as cell proliferation, stem cell maintenance, migration, apoptosis and gene or protein expressions. Expressed sequence tags (ESTs) are the best source of coding and non-coding sequences for the identification of miRNAs. Although DNA methylation is an important mechanism for miRNAs up-regulation, this has not been highly explored in type 2 DM. The present study is useful to elucidate the molecular mechanism of MiR-1285-5p in type 2 DM and its role in disease progression and we discovered miR-1285 as a novel prognostic, diagnostic and therapeutic target for type 2 DM.

Dissecting the functional role of microRNA 21 in osteosarcoma

Osteosarcoma (OS) is considered to be a malignant bone tumour that mainly affects the long bones, but it is also involved in other bones of the body. Currently, surgery and chemotherapy have achieved some response to patients with OS, but they are not increasing the survival rate as well as treatment options. Researchers made lot of drug options for OS, but yet, no treatment is existing in sight for the disease and needs a new insight into the molecular and signaling pathways for the disease. Now, it is necessary to develop a novel and alternative strategy for the prognosis, diagnosis and treatment options for OS. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a small non-coding RNA, and their size ranges from 18 to 22 nt in length. In the nucleus, miRNAs originate and transcribe into primary transcripts and later cleaved to produce stem loop-structured precursor nucleotides. microRNA 21 (miR-21) is considered to be a trivial marker for many diseases and has been upregulated in many cancers. Moreover, it plays a main role in proliferation, migration, invasion and apoptosis. miR-21 and its associated pathways are very important and play a critical role in the pathogenesis of OS and are considered to be a biomarker and a therapeutic target for OS. To our knowledge, there is no paper that demonstrates the responsibility and the role of miR-21 in OS and the number of studies related to miR-21 in OS is spare. Therefore, the main aim of this paper is to give an outline of the recent clinical investigation and importance of miR-21 in OS. It has been suggested that the up- and downregulation of miRNAs plays a crucial role in the pathogenesis and progression of OS. Normally, miR-21 was found to be upregulated in OS; however, we summarize the clinical relevance and the recent research findings associated with miR-21 in OS.