MicroRNA-3148 acts as molecular switch promoting malignant transformation and adipocytic differentiation of immortalized human bone marrow stromal cells via direct targeting of the SMAD2/TGFβ pathway

Modulatory effects of miRNAs in doxorubicin resistance: A mechanistic view

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a group of small non-coding RNAs and play an important role in controlling vital biological processes, including cell cycle control, apoptosis, metabolism, and development and differentiation, which lead to various diseases such as neurological, metabolic disorders, and cancer. Chemotherapy consider as gold treatment approaches for cancer patients. However, chemotherapeutic is one of the main challenges in cancer management. Doxorubicin (DOX) is an anti-cancer drug that interferes with the growth and spread of cancer cells. DOX is used to treat various types of cancer, including breast, nervous tissue, bladder, stomach, ovary, thyroid, lung, bone, muscle, joint and soft tissue cancers. Also recently, miRNAs have been identified as master regulators of specific genes responsible for the mechanisms that initiate chemical resistance. miRNAs have a regulatory effect on chemotherapy resistance through the regulation of apoptosis process. Also, the effect of miRNAs p53 gene as a key tumor suppressor was confirmed via studies. miRNAs can affect main biological pathways include PI3K pathway. This review aimed to present the current understanding of the mechanisms and effects of miRNAs on apoptosis, p53 and PTEN/PI3K/Akt signaling pathway related to DOX resistance.

Single-Cell Transcriptome Analysis Revealed Heterogeneity and Identified Novel Therapeutic Targets for Breast Cancer Subtypes

Breast cancer (BC) is a heterogeneous disease, which is primarily classified according to hormone receptors and HER2 expression. Despite the many advances in BC diagnosis and management, the identification of novel actionable therapeutic targets expressed by cancerous cells has always been a daunting task due to the large heterogeneity of the disease and the presence of non-cancerous cells (i.e., immune cells and stromal cells) within the tumor microenvironment. In the current study, we employed computational algorithms to decipher the cellular composition of estrogen receptor-positive (ER⁺), HER2⁺, ER⁺HER2⁺, and triple-negative BC (TNBC) subtypes from a total of 49,899 single cells' publicly available transcriptomic data derived from 26 BC patients. Restricting the analysis to EPCAM⁺Lin^- tumor epithelial cells, we identified the enriched gene sets in each BC molecular subtype. Integration of single-cell transcriptomic with CRISPR-Cas9 functional screen data identified 13 potential therapeutic targets for ER⁺, 44 potential therapeutic targets for HER2⁺, and 29 potential therapeutic targets for TNBC. Interestingly, several of the identified therapeutic targets outperformed the current standard of care for each BC subtype. Given the aggressive nature and lack of targeted therapies for TNBC, elevated expression of ENO1, FDPS, CCT6A, TUBB2A, and PGK1 predicted worse relapse-free survival (RFS) in basal BC (n = 442), while elevated expression of ENO1, FDPS, CCT6A, and PGK1 was observed in the most aggressive BLIS TNBC subtype. Mechanistically, targeted depletion of ENO1 and FDPS halted TNBC cell proliferation, colony formation, and organoid tumor growth under 3-dimensional conditions and increased cell death, suggesting their potential use as novel therapeutic targets for TNBC. Differential expression and gene set enrichment analysis in TNBC revealed enrichment in the cycle and mitosis functional categories in FDPS^high, while ENO1^high was associated with numerous functional categories, including cell cycle, glycolysis, and ATP metabolic processes. Taken together, our data are the first to unravel the unique gene signatures and to identify novel dependencies and therapeutic vulnerabilities for each BC molecular subtype, thus setting the foundation for the future development of more effective targeted therapies for BC.

Development of Computational Correlations among Known Drug Scaffolds and their Target-Specific Non-Coding RNA Scaffolds of Alzheimer's Disease

BACKGROUND

Alzheimer's disease is the most common neurodegenerative disorder. Recent development in sciences has also identified the pivotal role of microRNAs (miRNAs) in AD pathogenesis.

OBJECTIVES

We proposed a novel method to identify AD pathway-specific statistically significant miRNAs from the targets of known AD drugs. Moreover, microRNA scaffolds and corresponding drug scaffolds of different pathways were also discovered.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

A Wilcoxon signed-rank test was performed to identify pathway-specific significant miRNAs. We generated feed-forward loop regulations of microRNA-TF-gene-based networks, studied the minimum free energy structures of pre-microRNA sequences, and clustered those microRNAs with their corresponding structural motifs of robust transcription factors. Conservation analyses of significant microRNAs were done, and the phylogenetic trees were constructed. We identified 3'UTR binding sites and chromosome locations of these significant microRNAs.

RESULTS

In this study, hsa-miR-4261, hsa-miR-153-5p, hsa-miR-6766, and hsa-miR-4319 were identified as key miRNAs for the ACHE pathway and hsa-miR-326, hsa-miR-6133, hsa-miR-4251, hsa-miR-3148, hsa-miR-10527-5p, hsa-miR-527, and hsa-miR-518a were identified as regulatory miRNAs for the NMDA pathway. These miRNAs were regulated by several AD-specific TFs, namely RAD21, FOXA1, and ESR1. It has been observed that anisole and adamantane are important chemical scaffolds to regulate these significant miRNAs.

CONCLUSION

This is the first study that developed a detailed correlation between known AD drug scaffolds and their AD target-specific miRNA scaffolds. This study identified chromosomal locations of microRNAs and corresponding structural scaffolds of transcription factors that may be responsible for miRNA co-regulation for Alzheimer's disease. Our study provides hope for therapeutic improvements in the existing microRNAs by regulating pathways and targets.

OTOP2, Inversely Modulated by miR-3148, Inhibits CRC Cell Migration, Proliferation and Epithelial–Mesenchymal Transition: Evidence from Bioinformatics Data Mining and Experimental Verification

Introduction

Colorectal cancer (CRC) represents one of the most frequent human malignancies with its underlying pathogenesis still unclear. The prevalence of multi-omics in screening biomarkers associated with CRC has largely accelerated our understanding into the pathophysiology of CRC. The present work aimed to mine the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) datasets associated with CRC studies and identify potential targets correlated with CRC pathogenesis.

Methods

We screened the DEGs in GSE50760 and GSE104178 and performed functional Gene Ontology (GO) enrichment and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analysis. Furthermore, the overlapped DEGs were subjected to functional GO enrichment and KEGG pathway enrichment analysis. The protein–protein interaction (PPI) network and miRNA-mRNA network were constructed based on the overlapped DEGs. The in vitro functional assays including qRT-PCR, caspase-3 and -9 activity assay, wound healing assay, CCK-8 assay and luciferase reporter assay were performed to determine the role of OTOP2/miR-3148 axis in regulating CRC cell progression.

Results

Fifty-three overlapped genes were screened over GSE50760 and GSE104178 and ten hub genes were identified by PPI network analysis. Expression levels of GCG, SST, NPY, GUCA2B, PYY, UCN3, GUCA2A, TMEM82 and BEST4 were not correlated with the overall survival of patients with CRC. However, the high expression of otopetrin 2 (OTOP2) in the CRC tissues was significantly correlated with better overall survival of patients with CRC. The expression of OTOP2 in CRC tissues was significantly lowever than that in normal ones. The in vitro functional assays demonstrated that OTOP2 silence reduced caspase-3/-9 activities, promoted cell migration, proliferation and epithelial–mesenchymal transition in HT29 and SW620 cells. Furthermore, miR-3148 could inversely regulate OTOP2 expression in CRC cell lines.

Conclusion

Collectively, the work suggested the potential role of the OTOP2/miR-3148 axis in the pathophysiology of CRC by mining the GEO database.