miR-190b promotes tumor growth and metastasis via suppressing NLRC3 in bladder carcinoma

The clinical value of hsa-miR-190b-5p in peripheral blood of pediatric β-thalassemia and its regulation on BCL11A expression

BACKGROUND

The B cell CLL/lymphoma 11A (BCL11A) is a key regulator of hemoglobin switching in β-thalassemia (β-thal). Previous study has suggested that dysregulated microRNAs are involved in the regulation of BCL11A expression. The aim of this study was to investigate the clinical value of hsa-miR-190b-5p in β-thal, and to confirm the regulatory effect of hsa-miR-190b-5p on BCL11A expression.

METHODS

The peripheral blood of 25 pediatric β-thal patients and 25 healthy controls were selected, and qRT-PCR was used to analyze the levels of hsa-miR-190b-5p and BCL11A mRNA. The relationship between hsa-miR-190b-5p expression and hematological parameters was assessed by Pearson's correlation test. The diagnostic power of hsa-miR-190b-5p was evaluated by ROC curves analysis. The direct integration between hsa-miR-190b-5p and BCL11A 3'-UTR was confirmed by luciferase reporter assay.

RESULTS

Hsa-miR-190b-5p expression in pediatric β-thal was upregulated, and negatively correlated with the MCH and HbA levels, but positively correlated with the HbF level. Hsa-miR-190b-5p showed a good diagnostic capability for pediatric β-thal equivalent to that of HbA2 (AUC: 0.760 vs. 0.758). Moreover, the levels of BCL11A mRNA in pediatric β-thal were decreased, and hsa-miR-190b-5p had a negative correlation with BCL11A mRNA expression (r = -0.403). BCL11A was a target gene of hsa-miR-190b-5p. The mRNA and protein levels of BCL11A were diminished by introduction of hsa-miR-190b-5p, whereas its expression was upregulated by knockdown of hsa-miR-190b-5p.

CONCLUSIONS

Hsa-miR-190b-5p expression was upregulated in pediatric β-thal and might be an effective diagnostic biomarker. BCL11A was negatively regulated by hsa-miR-190b-5p, which might provide new target for the treatment of pediatric β-thal.

DDX17 induces epithelial-mesenchymal transition and metastasis through the miR-149-3p/CYBRD1 pathway in colorectal cancer

DEAD box helicase 17 (DDX17) has been reported to be involved in the initiation and development of several cancers. However, the functional role and mechanisms of DDX17 in colorectal cancer (CRC) malignant progression and metastasis remain unclear. Here, we reported that DDX17 expression was increased in CRC tissues compared with noncancerous mucosa tissues and further upregulated in CRC liver metastasis compared with patient-paired primary tumors. High levels of DDX17 were significantly correlated with aggressive phenotypes and worse clinical outcomes in CRC patients. Ectopic expression of DDX17 promoted cell migration and invasion in vitro and in vivo, while the opposite results were obtained in DDX17-deficient CRC cells. We identified miR-149-3p as a potential downstream miRNA of DDX17 through RNA sequencing analysis, and miR-149-3p displayed a suppressive effect on the metastatic potential of CRC cells. We demonstrated that CYBRD1 (a ferric reductase that contributes to dietary iron absorption) was a direct target of miR-149-3p and that miR-149-3p was required for DDX17-mediated regulation of CYBRD1 expression. Moreover, DDX17 contributed to the metastasis and epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) of CRC cells via downregulation of miR-149-3p, which resulted in increased CYBRD1 expression. In conclusion, our findings not only highlight the significance of DDX17 in the aggressive development and prognosis of CRC patients, but also reveal a novel mechanism underlying DDX17-mediated CRC cell metastasis and EMT progression through manipulation of the miR-149-3p/CYBRD1 pathway.

Negative regulator NLRC3: Its potential role and regulatory mechanism in immune response and immune-related diseases

NLRC3 is a member of the pattern recognition receptors nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain (NOD)-like receptors (NLRs) family, and plays a pivotal regulatory role in modulating the activation of immune cells. In macrophages, NLRC3 inhibits the activation of the NF-κB signaling pathway, the STING/TBK1 signaling pathway, and the formation of the inflammasome. In the context of T cells immune response, NLRC3 prevents the activation of T cells by regulating the function of dendritic cells and directly influencing the function of T cells. Different from other pattern recognition receptors, NLRC3 is more closely associated with regulatory activity than pathogens recognition, it influences the fates of cells, for example, prevents proliferation, promotes apoptosis and inhibits pyroptosis. These cellular functions regulated by NLRC3 are involved in the development processes of a variety of diseases, such as infectious disease, sterile inflammatory diseases, and cancer. However, its characteristics, function and regulatory mechanism in immune response and immune-related diseases have not been addressed fully. In this review, we elaborate the potential roles of NLRC3 from several different levels, include molecular mechanism, cellular functions in the immune-related diseases.

STING pathway contributes to the prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma and identification of prognostic gene signatures correlated to tumor microenvironment

Background

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most malignant solid tumors worldwide. Recent evidence shows that the stimulator of interferon genes (STING) pathway is essential for anti-tumor immunity via inducing the production of downstream inflammatory cytokines. However, its impact on the prognosis and tumor microenvironment of HCC was still limited known.

Methods

We obtained gene expression profiles of HCC from GEO, TCGA, and ICGC databases, and immune-related genes (IRGs) from the ImmPort database. Multivariate Cox regression was performed to identify independent prognostic factors. Nomogram was established to predict survival probability for individual patients. Kaplan–Meier curve was used to evaluate the survival difference. Afterward, ESTIMATE, TISCH, and TIMER databases were combined to assess the immune cell infiltration. Furthermore, the qPCR, western blotting, and immunohistochemistry were done to evaluate gene expression, and in vitro cell models were built to determine cell migratory ability.

Results

We found that gene markers of NLRC3, STING1, TBK1, TRIM21, and XRCC6 within STING pathway were independent prognostic factors in HCC patients. Underlying the finding, a predictive nomogram was constructed in TCGA-training cohort and further validated in TCGA-all and ICGC datasets, showing credible performance. Experimentally, up-regulated TBK1 promotes the ability of HCC cell migration. Next, the survival-related immune-related co-expressed gene signatures (IRCGS) (VAV1, RHOA, and ZC3HAV1) were determined in HCC cohorts and their expression was verified in human HCC cells and clinical samples. Furthermore, survival-related IRCGS was associated with the infiltration of various immune cell subtypes in HCC, the transcriptional expression of prominent immune checkpoints, and immunotherapeutic response.

Conclusion

Collectively, we constructed a novel prognostic nomogram model for predicting the survival probability of individual HCC patients. Moreover, an immune-related prognostic gene signature was determined. Both might function as potential therapeutic targets for HCC treatment in the future.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12935-022-02734-4.

Circ_0002623 promotes bladder cancer progression by regulating the miR-1276/SMAD2 axis

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are key regulatory factors in the development of multiple cancers. This study is targeted at exploring the effect of circ_0002623 on bladder cancer (BCa) progression and its mechanism. Circ_0002623 was screened out by analyzing the expression profile of circRNAs in BCa tissues. Circ_0002623, miR-1276 and SMAD2 mRNA expression levels in clinical sample tissues and cell lines were detected through quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). After circ_0002623 was overexpressed or silenced in BCa cells, the cell proliferation, migration and cell cycle were evaluated by CCK-8, BrdU, Transwell assay and flow cytometry. Tumor xenograft model was used to validate the biological function of circ_0002623 in vivo. Bioinformatics analysis and dual-luciferase reporter gene assay were conducted for analyzing and confirming, respectively, the targeted relationship between circ_0002623 and miR-1276, as well as between miR-1276 and SMAD2. The regulatory effects of circ_0002623 and miR-1276 on the expression levels of TGF-β, WNT1 and SMAD2 in BCa cells were detected by Western blot. We reported that, in BCa tissues and cell lines, circ_0002623 was up-regulated, whereas miR-1276 was down-regulated. Circ_0002623 positively regulated BCa cell proliferation, migration and cell cycle progression. Additionally, circ_0002623 could competitively bind with miR-1276 to increase the expression of SMAD2, the target gene of miR-1276. Furthermore, circ_0002623 could regulate the expression of TGF-β and WNT1 via modulating miR-1276 and SMAD2. This study helps to better understand the molecular mechanism underlying BCa progression.

MicroRNA‑190b expression predicts a good prognosis and attenuates the malignant progression of pancreatic cancer by targeting MEF2C and TCF4

MicroRNAs (miRNAs/miRs) are key components of regulatory networks in cancer. Although miR-190b is an important tumor-related miRNA, its role in pancreatic cancer has not been extensively investigated. The aim of the present study was to examine the expression of miR-190b in pancreatic cancer cell lines and tissues and evaluate its effects on cancer progression. Reverse transcription-quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) analysis was used to measure miR-190b expression levels in human pancreatic cancer cell lines and tissues, and the association between miR-190b expression and clinicopathological characteristics was assessed. An in vitro Transwell invasion assay and an in vivo metastasis formation assay were performed using pancreatic cancer cells. The effect of miR-190b on pancreatic cancer cell proliferation was evaluated using a Cell Counting Kit-8 assay based on an in vivo xenograft mouse model. The direct targets of miR-190b were predicted using bioinformatics tools and were validated through western blotting and luciferase reporter assays. Pancreatic cancer cell lines and tissues were found to express lower levels of miR-190b compared with normal cells and adjacent non-tumor tissues. Furthermore, high expression of miR-190b was found to be positively correlated with low T, N and American Joint Committee on Cancer classifications, and predicted a good prognosis. miR-190b was shown to exert suppressive effects on cancer cell proliferation, invasion and metastasis. In addition, it was also found that miR-190b directly targeted myocyte enhancer factor 2C (MEF2C) and transcription factor 4 (TCF4) in pancreatic cancer, thus serving as a tumor suppressor and a predictor of good prognosis in pancreatic cancer. The immunohistochemistry and RT-qPCR results indicated that the MEF2C and TCF4 expression levels were negatively correlated with the miR-190b expression levels. The findings of the present study highlight the value of miR-190b as a novel target candidate for pancreatic cancer diagnosis and therapy.

miR-4306 Suppresses Proliferation of Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma Cell by Targeting SIX3

Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is one of the most aggressive cancers and the primary cause of cancer-related mortality in China. micoRNA plays a vital role during tumor initiation and malignant progression. miR-4306 has been reported to negatively regulate aggressive cell phenotypes in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). Nevertheless, the function of miR-4306 in ESCC was still not clear. In this study, we detected miR-4306 expression by quantitative real-time reverse transcription-PCR (qRT-PCR) and found that miR-4306 expression was downregulated in human ESCC tissue samples and cell lines. Moreover, miR-4306 overexpression could restrain ESCC cell proliferation, migratory and invasive ability and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), promote cell apoptosis after treatment with or without cisplatin. In contrast, inhibiting the expression of miR-4306 showed the opposing results. Furthermore, we explored the molecular mechanism of effects of miR-4306 and found that miR-4306 inhibited the expression of SIX3 by interaction with SIX3 3'UTR in ESCC cells, and SIX3 overexpression significantly reversed the effect of miR-4306-mediated ESCC cells proliferation. The current study provided evidence of miR-4306 as a tumor suppression gene in ESCC.

Low Expression of miR-375 and miR-190b Differentiates Grade 3 Patients with Endometrial Cancer

Endometrial cancer (EC) is treated according to the stage and prognostic risk factors. Most EC patients are in the early stages and they are treated surgically. However some of them, including those with high grade (grade 3) are in the intermediate and high intermediate prognostic risk groups and may require adjuvant therapy. The goal of the study was to find differences between grades based on an miRNA gene expression profile. Tumor samples from 24 patients with grade 1 (n = 10), 2 (n = 7), and 3 (n = 7) EC were subjected to miRNA profiling using next generation sequencing. The results obtained were validated using the miRNA profile of 407 EC tumors from the external Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) cohort. We obtained sets of differentially expressed (DE) miRNAs with the largest amount between G2 to G1 (50 transcripts) and G3 to G1 (40 transcripts) patients. Validation of our results with external data (TCGA) gave us a reasonable gene overlap of which we selected two miRNAs (miR-375 and miR190b) that distinguish the high grade best from the low grade EC. Unsupervised clustering showed a high degree of heterogeneity within grade 2 samples. MiR-375 as well as 190b might be useful to create grading verification test for high grade EC. One of the possible mechanisms that is responsible for the high grade is modulation by virus of host morphology or physiology.

A positive feedback loop between TAZ and miR-942-3p modulates proliferation, angiogenesis, epithelial-mesenchymal transition process, glycometabolism and ROS homeostasis in human bladder cancer

Background

Transcriptional coactivator with PDZ-binding motif (TAZ) has been reported to be involved in tumor progression, angiogenesis, epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), glycometabolic modulation and reactive oxygen species (ROS) buildup. Herein, the underlying molecular mechanisms of the TAZ-induced biological effects in bladder cancer were discovered.

Methods

qRT-PCR, western blotting and immunohistochemistry were performed to determine the levels of TAZ in bladder cancer cells and tissues. CCK-8, colony formation, tube formation, wound healing and Transwell assays and flow cytometry were used to evaluate the biological functions of TAZ, miR-942-3p and growth arrest-specific 1 (GAS1). QRT-PCR and western blotting were used to determine the expression levels of related genes. Chromatin immunoprecipitation and a dual-luciferase reporter assay were performed to confirm the interaction between TAZ and miR-942. In vivo tumorigenesis and colorimetric glycolytic assays were also conducted.

Results

We confirmed the upregulation and vital roles of TAZ in bladder cancer. TAZ-induced upregulation of miR-942-3p expression amplified upstream signaling by inhibiting the expression of large tumor suppressor 2 (LATS2, a TAZ inhibitor). MiR-942-3p attenuated the impacts on cell proliferation, angiogenesis, EMT, glycolysis and ROS levels induced by TAZ knockdown. Furthermore, miR-942-3p restrained the expression of GAS1 to modulate biological behaviors.

Conclusion

Our study identified a novel positive feedback loop between TAZ and miR-942-3p that regulates biological functions in bladder cancer cells via GAS1 expression and illustrated that TAZ, miR-942-3p and GAS1 might be potential therapeutic targets for bladder cancer treatment.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13046-021-01846-5.

Wnt signalling pathway in bladder cancer

Bladder cancer (BC) is one of the most common tumours of the urinary system and is also known as a highly malignant tumour. In addition to conventional diagnosis and treatment methods, recent research has focused on studying the molecular mechanisms related to BC, in the hope that new, less toxic and effective targeted anticancer drugs and new diagnostic markers can be discovered. It is known that the Wingless (Wnt) signalling pathway and its related genes, proteins and other substances are involved in multiple biological processes of various tumours. Clarifying the contribution of the Wnt signalling pathway in bladder tumours will help establish early diagnosis indicators, develop new therapeutic drugs and evaluate the prognosis for BC. This review aims to summarise previous studies related to BC and the Wnt signalling pathway, with a focus on exploring the participating substances and their mechanisms in the regulation of the Wnt signalling pathway to better determine how to promote new chemotherapeutic drugs, potential therapeutic targets and diagnostic biomarkers.

MiR-190b impedes pancreatic β cell proliferation and insulin secretion by targeting NKX6-1 and may associate to gestational diabetes mellitus

BACKGROUND

The dysfunction of pancreatic β cells is related to the occurrence of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). This study aimed to investigate the mechanism underlying the effects of miR-190b on pancreatic β cell proliferation and insulin secretion.

METHODS

Quantitative real-time PCR was used to detect miR-190b expression in placenta tissues from GDM patients. The effects of miR-190b on islet cells activity, proliferation, and insulin secretion were measured using MTT assay, BrdU staining, and ELISA. The relationship between miR-190b and NK6 homeobox 1 (NKX6-1) was ensured by dual luciferase reporter assay.

RESULTS

MiR-190b was overexpressed in placenta tissues from GDM patients compared to normal pregnant woman. MiR-190b inhibitor inhibited the cell activity, proliferation, and insulin secretion of islet β cells, while miR-190b overexpression had an opposite effect. Additionally, miR-190b negatively regulated NKX6-1 expression. Overexpression of NKX6-1 reversed the inhibitory effect of miR-190b-mimics on islet β cell activity, proliferation, and insulin secretion. In mouse islets, knockdown of miR-190b promoted insulin secretion by up-regulating NKX6-1 expression.

CONCLUSION

Silence of miR-190b accelerated pancreatic β cell proliferation and insulin secretion via targeting NKX6-1, which might be a mechanism underlying the effects of miR-190b on the progression of GDM.