Long Noncoding RNA SOX2-OT Aggravates Doxorubicin-Induced Apoptosis of Cardiomyocyte by Targeting miR-942-5p/DP5

Functional analysis of a down-regulated transcription factor-SoxNeuroA gene involved in the acaricidal mechanism of scopoletin against spider mites

BACKGROUND

Insight into the mode of action of plant-derived acaricides will help in the development of sustainable control strategies for mite pests. Scopoletin, a promising plant-derived bioactive compound, displays prominent acaricidal activity against Tetranychus cinnabarinus. The transcription factor SoxNeuroA plays a vital role in maintaining calcium ion (Ca2+ ) homeostasis. Down-regulation of SoxNeuroA gene expression occurs in scopoletin-exposed mites, but the functional role of this gene remains unknown.

RESULTS

A SoxNeuroA gene from T. cinnabarinus (TcSoxNeuroA) was first cloned and identified. Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR), and Western blotting assays all confirmed that the gene expression and protein levels of TcSoxNeuroA were significantly reduced under scopoletin exposure. Furthermore, RNA interference silencing of the weakly expressed SoxNeuroA gene significantly enhanced the susceptibility of mites to scopoletin, suggesting that the acaricidal mechanism of scopoletin was mediated by the weakly expressed SoxNeuroA gene. Additionally, yeast one-hybrid (Y1H) and dual-luciferase reporter assays revealed that TcSoxNeuroA was a repressor of Orai1 Ca2+ channel gene transcription, and the key binding sequence was ATCAAAG (positions -361 to -368 of the Orai1 promoter). Importantly, site-directed mutagenesis and microscale thermophoresis assays further indicated that ASP185, ARG189, and LYS217, which were key predicted hydrogen-bonding sites in the molecular docking model, may be the vital binding sites for scopoletin in TcSoxNeuroA.

CONCLUSION

These results demonstrate that the acaricidal mechanism of scopoletin involves inhibition of the transcription factor SoxNeuroA, thus inducing the activation of the Orai1 Ca2+ channel, eventually leading to Ca2+ overload and lethality. Elucidation of the transcription factor-targeted mechanism for this potent plant-derived acaricide has vital implications for the design of next-generation green acaricides with novel targets. © 2023 Society of Chemical Industry.

SOX2-OT Binds with ILF3 to Promote Head and Neck Cancer Progression by Modulating Crosstalk between STAT3 and TGF-β Signaling

Long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) is involved in the progression of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). The molecular mechanism of lncRNA SOX2-OT in HNSCC remains unclear. Therefore, we aimed to elucidate the oncogenic role of SOX2-OT in HNSCC. QRT-PCR analysis was performed in 61 pairs of HNSCC cancer tissues, adjacent normal tissues, and 68 plasma samples confirmed that lncRNA SOX2-OT was overexpressed in cancer tissues and plasma samples, which served as a poor prognostic factor for HNSCC. The FISH assay demonstrated that SOX2-OT was localized in the nucleus and cytoplasm of HNSCC cell lines. Further, the cell function assay confirmed that SOX2-OT promoted cell proliferation and metastasis in vitro and in vivo. RNA pulldown and RIP assay results revealed that SOX2-OT bonds with ILF3 in HNSCC, and the rescue assay confirmed that SOX2-OT played an oncogenic role depending on ILF3 protein expression. Ingenuity pathway analysis and Western blotting indicated that SOX2-OT regulated HNSCC progression by promoting STAT3 phosphorylation and modulating the crosstalk between STAT3 and TGF-β signaling. These results reveal evidence for the role of SOX2-OT in HNSCC progression and metastasis by binding to ILF3, which may serve as a therapeutic target and prognostic biomarker in HNSCC.

Modulation of lncRNA links endothelial glycocalyx to vascular dysfunction of tyrosine kinase inhibitor

AIMS

Novel cancer therapies leading to increased survivorship of cancer patients have been negated by a concomitant rise in cancer therapies-related cardiovascular toxicities. Sunitinib, a first line multi-receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor, has been reported to cause vascular dysfunction although the initiating mechanisms contributing to this side effect remain unknown. Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are emerging regulators of biological processes in endothelial cells (ECs); however, their roles in cancer therapies-related vascular toxicities remain underexplored.

METHODS AND RESULTS

We performed lncRNA expression profiling to identify potential lncRNAs that are dysregulated in human-induced pluripotent stem cell-derived ECs (iPSC-ECs) treated with sunitinib. We show that the lncRNA hyaluronan synthase 2 antisense 1 (HAS2-AS1) is significantly diminished in sunitinib-treated iPSC-ECs. Sunitinib was found to down-regulate HAS2-AS1 by an epigenetic mechanism involving hypermethylation. Depletion of HAS2-AS1 recapitulated sunitinib-induced detrimental effects on iPSC-ECs, whereas CRISPR-mediated activation of HAS2-AS1 reversed sunitinib-induced dysfunction. We confirmed that HAS2-AS1 stabilizes the expression of its sense gene HAS2 via an RNA/mRNA heteroduplex formation. Knockdown of HAS2-AS1 led to reduced synthesis of hyaluronic acid (HA) and up-regulation of ADAMTS5, an enzyme involved in extracellular matrix degradation, resulting in disruption of the endothelial glycocalyx which is critical for ECs. In vivo, sunitinib-treated mice showed reduced coronary flow reserve, accompanied by a reduction in Has2os and degradation of the endothelial glycocalyx. Finally, we identified that treatment with high molecular-weight HA can prevent the deleterious effects of sunitinib both in vitro and in vivo by preserving the endothelial glycocalyx.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings highlight the importance of lncRNA-mediated regulation of the endothelial glycocalyx as an important determinant of sunitinib-induced vascular toxicity and reveal potential novel therapeutic avenues to attenuate sunitinib-induced vascular dysfunction.

DoxoDB: A Database for the Expression Analysis of Doxorubicin-Induced lncRNA Genes

Cancer and cardiovascular disease are the leading causes of death worldwide. Recent evidence suggests that these two life-threatening diseases share several features in disease progression, such as angiogenesis, fibrosis, and immune responses. This has led to the emergence of a new field called cardio-oncology. Doxorubicin is a chemotherapy drug widely used to treat cancer, such as bladder and breast cancer. However, this drug causes serious side effects, including acute ventricular dysfunction, cardiomyopathy, and heart failure. Based on this evidence, we hypothesize that comparing the expression profiles of cells and tissues treated with doxorubicin may yield new insights into the adverse effects of the drug on cellular activities. To test this hypothesis, we analyzed published RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) data from doxorubicin-treated cells to identify commonly differentially expressed genes, including long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) as they are known to be dysregulated in diseased tissues and cells. From our systematic analysis, we identified several doxorubicin-induced genes. To confirm these findings, we treated human cardiac fibroblasts with doxorubicin to record expression changes in the selected doxorubicin-induced genes and performed a loss-of-function experiment of the lncRNA MAP3K4-AS1. To further disseminate the analyzed data, we built the web database DoxoDB.

Comparative Analysis of Non-Coding RNA Transcriptomics in Heart Failure

Heart failure constitutes a clinical complex syndrome with different symptomatic characteristics depending on age, sex, race and ethnicity, among others, which has become a major public health issue with an increasing prevalence. One of the most interesting tools seeking to improve prevention, diagnosis, treatment and prognosis of this pathology has focused on finding new molecular biomarkers since heart failure relies on deficient cardiac homeostasis, which is regulated by a strict gene expression. Therefore, currently, analyses of non-coding RNA transcriptomics have been oriented towards human samples. The present review develops a comparative study emphasizing the relevance of microRNAs, long non-coding RNAs and circular RNAs as potential biomarkers in heart failure. Significantly, further studies in this field of research are fundamental to supporting their widespread clinical use. In this sense, the various methodologies used by the authors should be standardized, including larger cohorts, homogeneity of the samples and uniformity of the bioinformatic pipelines used to reach stratification and statistical significance of the results. These basic adjustments could provide promising steps to designing novel strategies for clinical management of patients with heart failure.

Non-coding RNAs in cancer therapy-induced cardiotoxicity: Mechanisms, biomarkers, and treatments

As a result of ongoing breakthroughs in cancer therapy, cancer patients' survival rates have grown considerably. However, cardiotoxicity has emerged as the most dangerous toxic side effect of cancer treatment, negatively impacting cancer patients' prognosis. In recent years, the link between non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) and cancer therapy-induced cardiotoxicity has received much attention and investigation. NcRNAs are non-protein-coding RNAs that impact gene expression post-transcriptionally. They include microRNAs (miRNAs), long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), and circular RNAs (circRNAs). In several cancer treatments, such as chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and targeted therapy-induced cardiotoxicity, ncRNAs play a significant role in the onset and progression of cardiotoxicity. This review focuses on the mechanisms of ncRNAs in cancer therapy-induced cardiotoxicity, including apoptosis, mitochondrial damage, oxidative stress, DNA damage, inflammation, autophagy, aging, calcium homeostasis, vascular homeostasis, and fibrosis. In addition, this review explores potential ncRNAs-based biomarkers and therapeutic strategies, which may help to convert ncRNAs research into clinical practice in the future for early detection and improvement of cancer therapy-induced cardiotoxicity.

Long non-coding RNAs and microRNAs as crucial regulators in cardio-oncology

Cancer is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Significant improvements in the modern era of anticancer therapeutic strategies have increased the survival rate of cancer patients. Unfortunately, cancer survivors have an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases, which is believed to result from anticancer therapies. The emergence of cardiovascular diseases among cancer survivors has served as the basis for establishing a novel field termed cardio-oncology. Cardio-oncology primarily focuses on investigating the underlying molecular mechanisms by which anticancer treatments lead to cardiovascular dysfunction and the development of novel cardioprotective strategies to counteract cardiotoxic effects of cancer therapies. Advances in genome biology have revealed that most of the genome is transcribed into non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs), which are recognized as being instrumental in cancer, cardiovascular health, and disease. Emerging studies have demonstrated that alterations of these ncRNAs have pathophysiological roles in multiple diseases in humans. As it relates to cardio-oncology, though, there is limited knowledge of the role of ncRNAs. In the present review, we summarize the up-to-date knowledge regarding the roles of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) and microRNAs (miRNAs) in cancer therapy-induced cardiotoxicities. Moreover, we also discuss prospective therapeutic strategies and the translational relevance of these ncRNAs.

Long Noncoding RNAs Involved in Cardiomyocyte Apoptosis Triggered by Different Stressors

Cardiomyocytes are essential to maintain the normal cardiac function. Ischemia, hypoxia, and drug stimulation can induce pathological apoptosis of cardiomyocytes which eventually leads to heart failure, arrhythmia, and other cardiovascular diseases. Understanding the molecular mechanisms that regulate cardiomyocyte apoptosis is of great significance for the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular diseases. In recent years, more and more evidences reveal that long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) play important regulatory roles in myocardial cell apoptosis. They can modulate the expression of apoptosis-related genes at post-transcriptional level by altering the translation efficacy of target mRNAs or functioning as a precursor for miRNAs or competing for miRNA-mediated inhibition. Moreover, reversing the abnormal expression of lncRNAs can attenuate and even reverse the pathological apoptosis of cardiomyocytes. Therefore, apoptosis-related lncRNAs may become a potential new field for studying cardiomyocyte apoptosis and provide new ideas for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases.

miR-942-5p prevents sepsis-induced acute lung injury via targeting TRIM37

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have been demonstrated to play pivotal roles in the pathogenesis of sepsis-induced acute lung injury (ALI). In this work, we aimed to clarify the potential role and the underlying mechanism of miR-942-5p in a lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced A549 cell injury model. The cell injury was evaluated by CCK-8 assay, flow cytometry and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The expression levels of miR-942-5p and tripartite motif-containing protein 37 (TRIM37) were measured by real-time PCR and Western blot, and their association was then validated by bioinformatics, luciferase reporter assay and RNA pull-down assay. We found that the expression of miR-942-5p was decreased in LPS-treated A549 cells. Furthermore, LPS treatment suppressed A549 cell viability, promoted apoptosis and increased the levels of inflammatory cytokines. Conversely, overexpression of miR-942-5p increased cell viability, reduced apoptosis and alleviated inflammatory cytokine secretion in the presence of LPS. Moreover, miR-942-5p directly targeted TRIM37 by binding to the 3'-UTR of TRIM37 mRNA. Upregulation of TRIM37 effectively reversed the anti-apoptotic and anti-inflammatory effects of miR-942-5p in LPS-induced A549 cells. Our findings suggested that miR-942-5p protected against LPS-induced cell injury through inhibiting apoptosis and inflammation in A549 cells by negatively regulating TRIM37.

Long Non-coding RNAs: Potential Players in Cardiotoxicity Induced by Chemotherapy Drugs

One of the most important side effects of chemotherapy is cardiovascular complications, such as cardiotoxicity. Many factors are involved in the pathogenesis of cardiotoxicity; one of the most important of which is long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs). lncRNA has 200-1000 nucleotides. It is involved in important processes such as cell proliferation, regeneration and apoptosis; today it is used as a prognostic and diagnostic factor. A, various drugs by acting on lncRNAs can affect cells. Therefore, by accurately identifying IncRNAs function, we can play an effective role in preventing the development of cardiotoxicity-induced chemotherapy drugs, and use them as a therapeutic strategy to improve clinical symptoms and increase patient survival.