MiR-183-5p Promotes Tumor Progression of Osteosarcoma and Predicts Poor Prognosis in Patients

Research progress on the role of lncRNA, circular RNA, and microRNA networks in regulating ferroptosis in osteosarcoma

Noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) do not participate in protein-coding. Ferroptosis is a newly discovered form of cell death mediated by reactive oxygen species and lipid peroxidation. Recent studies have shown that ncRNAs such as microRNAs, long noncoding RNAs, circular RNAs, and ferroptosis are involved in the occurrence and development of osteosarcoma (OS). Studies have confirmed that ncRNAs participate in the development of OS by regulating the ferroptosis. However, systematic summary on this topic are still lacking. This review summarises the potential role of ncRNAs in the diagnosis, treatment, drug resistance, and prognosis of OS and the basis for diagnosing, preventing, and treating clinical OS and developing effective drugs. This review summarises the latest research progress on ncRNAs that regulate ferroptosis in OS, attempts to clarify the molecular mechanisms by which ncRNAs regulate ferroptosis in the pathogenesis of OS, and elaborates on the involvement of ferroptosis in OS from the perspective of ncRNAs.

GABARAPL1 is essential in extracellular vesicle cargo loading and metastasis development

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

Hypoxia is a common feature of tumours, associated with poor prognosis due to increased resistance to radio- and chemotherapy and enhanced metastasis development. Previously we demonstrated that GABARAPL1 is required for the secretion of extracellular vesicles (EV) with pro-angiogenic properties during hypoxia. Here, we explored the role of GABARAPL1+ EV in the metastatic cascade.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

GABARAPL1 deficient or control MDA-MB-231 cells were injected in murine mammary fat pads. Lungs were dissected and analysed for human cytokeratin 18. EV from control and GABARAPL1 deficient cells exposed to normoxia (21% O2) or hypoxia (O2 < 0.02%) were isolated and analysed by immunoblot, nanoparticle tracking analysis, high resolution flow cytometry, mass spectrometry and next-generation sequencing. Cellular migration and invasion were analysed using scratch assays and transwell-invasion assays, respectively.

RESULTS

The number of pulmonary metastases derived from GABARAPL1 deficient tumours decreased by 84%. GABARAPL1 deficient cells migrate slower but display a comparable invasive capacity. Both normoxic and hypoxic EV contain proteins and miRNAs associated with metastasis development and, in line, increase cancer cell invasiveness. Although GABARAPL1 deficiency alters EV content, it does not alter the EV-induced increase in cancer cell invasiveness.

CONCLUSION

GABARAPL1 is essential for metastasis development. This is unrelated to changes in migration and invasion and suggests that GABARAPL1 or GABARAPL1+ EV are essential in other processes related to the metastatic cascade.

MicroRNAs and osteosarcoma: Potential targets for inhibiting metastasis and increasing chemosensitivity

Osteosarcoma (OS) is the third most common cancer in young adults after lymphoma and brain cancer. Metastasis, like other cellular events, is dependent on signaling pathways; a series of changes in some proteins and signaling pathways pave the way for OS cells to invade and migrate. Ezrin, TGF-β, Notch, RUNX2, matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), Wnt/β-catenin, and phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K)/AKT are among the most important of these proteins and signaling pathways. Despite the improvements in treating OS, the overall survival of patients suffering from the metastatic disease has not experienced any significant change after surgical treatments and chemotherapy and 5-years overall survival in patients with metastatic OS is about 20%. Studies have shown that overexpression or inhibition of some microRNAs (miRNAs) has significant effects in limiting the invasion and migration of OS cells. The results of these studies highlight the potential of the clinical application of some miRNA mimics and miRNA inhibitors (antagomiRs) to inhibit OS metastasis in the future. In addition, some studies have shown that miRNAs are associated with the most important drug resistance mechanisms in OS, and some miRNAs are highly effective targets to increase chemosensitivity. The results of these studies suggest that miRNA mimics and antagomiRs may be helpful to increase the efficacy of conventional chemotherapy drugs in the treatment of metastatic OS. In this article, we discussed the role of various signaling pathways and the involved miRNAs in the metastasis of OS, attempting to provide a comprehensive review of the literature on OS metastasis and chemosensitivity.

Identification of key miRNAs in prostate cancer progression based on miRNA-mRNA network construction

Prostate cancer (PC) is one of the major male cancers. Differential diagnosis of PC is indispensable for the individual therapy, i.e., Gleason score (GS) that describes the grade of cancer can be used to choose the appropriate therapy. However, the current techniques for PC diagnosis and prognosis are not always effective. To identify potential markers that could be used for differential diagnosis of PC, we analyzed miRNA-mRNA interactions and we build specific networks for PC onset and progression. Key differentially expressed miRNAs for each GS were selected by calculating three parameters of network topology measures: the number of their single regulated mRNAs (NSR), the number of target genes (NTG) and NSR/NTG. miRNAs that obtained a high statistically significant value of these three parameters were chosen as potential biomarkers for computational validation and pathway analysis. 20 miRNAs were identified as key candidates for PC. 8 out of 20 miRNAs (miR-25-3p, miR-93-3p, miR-122-5p, miR-183-5p, miR-615-3p, miR-7-5p, miR-375, and miR-92a-3p) were differentially expressed in all GS and proposed as biomarkers for PC onset. In addition, "Extracellular-receptor interaction", "Focal adhesion", and "microRNAs in cancer" were significantly enriched by the differentially expressed target genes of the identified miRNAs. miR-10a-5p was found to be differentially expressed in GS 6, 7, and 8 in PC samples. 3 miRNAs were identified as PC GS-specific differentially expressed miRNAs: miR-155-5p was identified in PC samples with GS 6, and miR-142-3p and miR-296-3p in PC samples with GS 9. The efficacy of 20 miRNAs as potential biomarkers was revealed with a Random Forest classification using an independent dataset. The results demonstrated our 20 miRNAs achieved a better performance (AUC: 0.73) than miRNAs selected with Boruta algorithm (AUC: 0.55), a method for the automated feature extraction. Studying miRNA-mRNA associations, key miRNAs were identified with a computational approach for PC onset and progression. Further experimental validations are needed for future translational development.

Risk Factors, Prognostic Factors, and Nomograms for Distant Metastasis in Patients With Newly Diagnosed Osteosarcoma: A Population-Based Study

BACKGROUND

Osteosarcoma is the most common bone cancer, mainly occurring in children and adolescents, among which distant metastasis (DM) still leads to a poor prognosis. Although nomogram has recently been used in tumor areas, there are no studies focused on diagnostic and prognostic evaluation of DM in primary osteosarcoma patients.

METHODS

The data of osteosarcoma patients diagnosed between 2004 and 2015 were extracted from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to identify independent risk factors for DM in osteosarcoma patients, and univariate and multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression analyses were used to determine independent prognostic factors of osteosarcoma patients with DM. We then established two novel nomograms and the results were evaluated by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves, calibration curves, and decision curve analysis (DCA).

RESULT

A total of 1,657 patients with osteosarcoma were included, and 267 patients (16.11%) had DM at the time of diagnosis. The independent risk factors for DM in patients with osteosarcoma include age, grade, T stage, and N stage. The independent prognostic factors for osteosarcoma patients with DM are age, chemotherapy and surgery. The results of ROC curves, calibration, DCA, and Kaplan-Meier (K-M) survival curves in the training, validation, and expanded testing sets, confirmed that two nomograms can precisely predict occurrence and prognosis of DM in osteosarcoma patients.

CONCLUSION

Two nomograms are expected to be effective tools for predicting the risk of DM for osteosarcoma patients and personalized prognosis prediction for patients with DM, which may benefit clinical decision-making.