Diagnostic and prognostic potential clustered miRNAs in bladder cancer

The Role of miRNAs to Detect Progression, Stratify, and Predict Relevant Clinical Outcomes in Bladder Cancer

Bladder cancer (BC) is one of the most common types of cancer worldwide, with significant differences in survival depending on the degree of muscle and surrounding tissue invasion. For this reason, the timely detection and monitoring of the disease are important. Surveillance cystoscopy is an invasive, costly, and uncomfortable procedure to monitor BC, raising the need for new, less invasive alternatives. In this scenario, microRNAs (miRNAs) represent attractive prognostic tools given their role as gene regulators in different biological processes, tissue expression, and their ease of evaluation in liquid samples. In cancer, miRNA expression is dynamically modified depending on the tumor type and cancer staging, making them potential biomarkers. This review describes the most recent studies in the last five years exploring the utility of miRNA-based strategies to monitor progression, stratify, and predict relevant clinical outcomes of bladder cancer. Several studies have shown that multimarker miRNA models can better predict overall survival, recurrence, and progression in BC patients than traditional strategies, especially when combining miRNA expression with clinicopathological variables. Future studies should focus on validating their use in different cohorts and liquid samples.

Integrated multiomics analysis of chromosome 19 miRNA cluster in bladder cancer

With 46 microRNAs (miRNAs) embedded tandemly over a distance of ~100 kb, chromosome 19 microRNA cluster (C19MC) is the largest miRNA cluster in the human genome. The C19MC is transcribed from a long noncoding genomic region and is usually expressed simultaneously at a higher level. Hence, we performed an integrative multiomics data analysis to examine C19MC regulation, expression patterns, and their impact on bladder cancer (BCa). We found that 43 members of C19MC were highly expressed in BCa. However, its co-localization with recurrent copy number variation (CNV) gain was not statistically significant to implicate its upregulation. It has been reported that C19MC expression is regulated by a well-established CpG island situated 17.6 kb upstream of the transcription start site, but we found that CpG probes at this island were hypomethylated, which was not statistically significant in the BCa cohort. In addition, the promoter region of C19MC is strongly regulated by a group of seven transcription factors (NR2F6, SREBF1, TBP, GATA3, GABPB1, ETV4, and ZNF444) and five chromatin modifiers (SMC3, KDMA1, EZH2, RAD21, and CHD7). Interestingly, these 12 genes were found to be overexpressed in BCa patients. Further, C19MC targeted 42 tumor suppressor (TS) genes that were downregulated, of which 15 were significantly correlated with patient survival. Our findings suggest that transcription factors and chromatin modifiers at the promoter region may regulate C19MC overexpression. The upregulated C19MC members, transcription regulators, and TS genes can be further exploited as potential diagnostic and prognostic indicators as well as for therapeutic management of BCa.

miRNAs role in bladder cancer pathogenesis and targeted therapy: Signaling pathways interplay - A review

Bladder cancer (BC) is the 11th most popular cancer in females and 4th in males. A lot of efforts have been exerted to improve BC patients' care. Besides, new approaches have been developed to enhance the efficiency of BC diagnosis, prognosis, therapeutics, and monitoring. MicroRNAs (miRNAs, miRs) are small chain nucleic acids that can regulate wide networks of cellular events. They can inhibit or degrade their target protein-encoding genes. The miRNAs are either downregulated or upregulated in BC due to epigenetic alterations or biogenesis machinery abnormalities. In BC, dysregulation of miRNAs is associated with cell cycle arrest, apoptosis, proliferation, metastasis, treatment resistance, and other activities. A variety of miRNAs have been related to tumor kind, stage, or patient survival. Besides, although new approaches for using miRNAs in the diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of BC have been developed, it still needs further investigations. In the next words, we illustrate the recent advances in the role of miRNAs in BC aspects. They include the role of miRNAs in BC pathogenesis and therapy. Besides, the clinical applications of miRNAs in BC diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment are also discussed.

Identify Potential Urine Biomarkers for Bladder Cancer Prognosis Using NGS Data Analysis and Experimental Validation

Bladder cancer (BC) is one of the most often reported malignancies globally, with a high recurrence rate and associated morbidity and mortality, especially in advanced BC. There has been a surge in the number of molecular targets revealed for BC prognosis and treatment. However, there is still a great need to discover novel biomarkers. Consequently, the current study investigated biomarkers that might indicate the progression of bladder cancer. In this study, bioinformatics analysis was done on a single GEO dataset, and TCGA-BLCA information was connected with differentially expressed genes (DEGs). The levels of mRNA and protein expression were validated using qRT-PCR. According to our findings, CRYAB, ECM1, ALDOB, AOC, GPX3, IGFBP7, AQP2, LASS2, TMEM176A, GALNT1, and LASS2 were highly enriched in cell division, identical protein binding, and developmental process in bladder cancer patients. In addition, among the highly differentiated genes, ECM1, GALNT1, LASS2, and GPX3 showed significant molecular alterations in BC, which are crucial for marker identification. Moreover, the mRNA, CNVs, and protein levels of ECM1, GALNT1, LASS2, and GPX3 were significantly increased in BC patients. Our predictions and analysis studies stated that these four genes act as urine biomarkers and played a crucial role in disease prognosis and the therapeutic process of bladder cancer. Our outcomes showed that these four novel urine biomarkers have the potential to provide innovative diagnostics, early predictions, and disease targets, ultimately improving the BC patient's prognosis.

CmirC: an integrated database of clustered miRNAs co-localized with copy number variations in cancer

Genomic rearrangements and copy number variations (CNVs) are the major regulators of clustered microRNAs (miRNAs) expression. Several clustered miRNAs are harbored in and around chromosome fragile sites (CFSs) and cancer-associated genomic hotspots. Aberrant expression of such clusters can lead to oncogenic or tumor suppressor activities. Here, we developed CmirC (Clustered miRNAs co-localized with CNVs), a comprehensive database of clustered miRNAs co-localized with CNV regions. The database consists of 481 clustered miRNAs co-localized with CNVs and their expression patterns in 35 cancer types of the TCGA. The portal also provides information on CFSs, miRNA cluster candidates, genomic coordinates, target gene networks, and gene functionality. The web portal is integrated with advanced tools such as JBrowse, NCBI-BLAST, GeneSCF, visNetwork, and NetworkD3 to help the researchers in data analysis, visualization, and browsing. This portal provides a promising avenue for integrated data analytics and offers additional evidence for the complex regulation of clustered miRNAs in cancer. The web portal is freely accessible at http://slsdb.manipal.edu/cmirclust to explore clinically significant miRNAs.