Low microRNA-139 expression associates with poor prognosis in patients with tumors: A meta-analysis

MicroRNA Biomarkers as Promising Tools for Early Colorectal Cancer Screening-A Comprehensive Review

Colorectal cancer (CRC) ranks as the third most prevalent cancer worldwide. Early detection of this neoplasia has proven to improve prognosis, resulting in a 90% increase in survival. However, available CRC screening methods have limitations, requiring the development of new tools. MicroRNA biomarkers have emerged as a powerful screening tool, as they are highly expressed in CRC patients and easily detectable in several biological samples. While microRNAs are extensively studied in blood samples, recent interest has now arisen in other samples, such as stool samples, where they can be combined with existing screening methods. Among the microRNAs described in the literature, microRNA-21-5p and microRNA-92a-3p and their cluster have demonstrated high potential for early CRC screening. Furthermore, the combination of multiple microRNAs has shown improved performance in CRC detection compared to individual microRNAs. This review aims to assess the available data in the literature on microRNAs as promising biomarkers for early CRC screening, explore their advantages and disadvantages, and discuss the optimal study characteristics for analyzing these biomarkers.

CBX3 regulated by miR-139 promotes the development of HCC by regulating cell cycle progression

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), a major primary liver cancer, is one of the most lethal malignancies worldwide. Increasing evidence has demonstrated that chromobox protein homolog 3 (CBX3) functions as an oncogene in different cancers. However, its expression profiles and biological functions in HCC remain unknown. Data on CBX3 expression in HCC acquired from the GEO and TCGA databases were analyzed. The biological functions of CBX3 in HCC were examined by in vitro experiments. Bioinformatics analysis, qRT-PCR and western blotting were performed to explore the mechanism of CBX3 in HCC. CBX3 mRNA was upregulated in HCC tissues, and overexpression of CBX3 mRNA was negatively correlated with malignancies and poor prognosis in HCC patients. CBX3 knockdown decreased growth, migration and invasion of HCC cells in vitro. Moreover, bioinformatics analysis and experimental observation indicated that CBX3 expression was correlated with cell cycle regulatory proteins in HCC cells. Finally, starBase predicted that miR-139 could directly target CBX3 in HCC. Confirmatory experiments verified that miR-139 overexpression attenuated HCC cell proliferation and migration, and these effects could be reversed by overexpressing CBX3. Our results showed that the miR-139/CBX3 axis may be involved in HCC development by regulating cell cycle progression and may be a promising target in the treatment of HCC.

MicroRNA-139, an Emerging Gate-Keeper in Various Types of Cancer

Mounting data show that MIR139 is commonly silenced in solid cancer and hematological malignancies. MIR139 acts as a critical tumor suppressor by tuning the cellular response to different types of stress, including DNA damage, and by repressing oncogenic signaling pathways. Recently, novel insights into the mechanism of MIR139 silencing in tumor cells have been described. These include epigenetic silencing, inhibition of POL-II transcriptional activity on gene regulatory elements, enhanced expression of competing RNAs and post-transcriptional regulation by the microprocessor complex. Some of these MIR139-silencing mechanisms have been demonstrated in different types of cancer, suggesting that these are more general oncogenic events. Reactivation of MIR139 expression in tumor cells causes inhibition of tumor cell expansion and induction of cell death by the repression of oncogenic mRNA targets. In this review, we discuss the different aspects of MIR139 as a tumor suppressor gene and give an overview on different transcriptional mechanisms regulating MIR139 in oncogenic stress and across different types of cancer. The novel insights into the expression regulation and the tumor-suppressing activities of MIR139 may pave the way to new treatment options for cancer.

The prognostic values of serum markers in hepatocellular carcinoma after invasive therapies based on real-world data

BACKGROUND AND AIMS

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignancy with poor prognosis, and the mortality rate remains high. More than 70% of HCC patients have recurrence within 5 years after treatment. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the prognostic values of serum markers with retrospective data.

METHODS

We applied real-world data (RWD) to analyze the prognostic values of six serum markers for HCC patients after treatment, including α-fetoprotein (AFP), α-fetoprotein-L3 (AFP-L3), Golgi protein73 (GP73), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), albumin (ALB), and total bilirubin (TBil). A total of 268 cases were enrolled to analyze recurrence-free survival (RFS), and 104 cases were used to analyze overall survival (OS).

RESULTS

Our results demonstrated that patients with higher AFP and AFP-L3 had shorter RFS (p = 0.016 and 0.004), while higher GP73, ALT, and TBil experienced longer RFS (p = 0.000, 0.020, and 0.019). Patients with high-level GP73, ALT, TBil, and low-level ALB had significantly higher mortality rate (p=0.035, 0.008, 0.010, and 0.005). Multivariate analysis revealed that GP73 (HR = 1.548, p = 0.001) and ALT (HR = 1.316, p = 0.046) were identified as independent prognostic factors for RFS, ALB (HR = 0.127, p = 0.007), and ALT (HR = 0.237, p = 0.01) were identified as independent prognostic factors for OS. Subgroups analysis showed that GP73 had better prognostic values than other serum markers in early-stage HCC (p = 0.023).

CONCLUSIONS

Our study demonstrates that AFP, AFP-L3, and GP73 can be used as prognostic indicators for predicting the recurrence of HCC, while liver function tests have better survival prediction values. GP73 can act as a promising prognostic marker for early-stage HCC.

Comparative transcriptome analyses reveal genes associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection of human lung epithelial cells

During 2020, understanding the molecular mechanism of SARS-CoV-2 infection (the cause of COVID-19) became a scientific priority due to the devastating effects of the COVID-19. Many researchers have studied the effect of this viral infection on lung epithelial transcriptomes and deposited data in public repositories. Comprehensive analysis of such data could pave the way for development of efficient vaccines and effective drugs. In the current study, we obtained high-throughput gene expression data associated with human lung epithelial cells infected with respiratory viruses such as SARS-CoV-2, SARS, H1N1, avian influenza, rhinovirus and Dhori, then performed comparative transcriptome analysis to identify SARS-CoV-2 exclusive genes. The analysis yielded seven SARS-CoV-2 specific genes including CSF2 [GM-CSF] (colony-stimulating factor 2) and calcium-binding proteins (such as S100A8 and S100A9), which are known to be involved in respiratory diseases. The analyses showed that genes involved in inflammation are commonly altered by infection of SARS-CoV-2 and influenza viruses. Furthermore, results of protein–protein interaction analyses were consistent with a functional role of CSF2 and S100A9 in COVID-19 disease. In conclusion, our analysis revealed cellular genes associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection of the human lung epithelium; these are potential therapeutic targets.

miR-139-5p Loss-Mediated WTAP Activation Contributes to Hepatocellular Carcinoma Progression by Promoting the Epithelial to Mesenchymal Transition

Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a primary aggressive gastrointestinal neoplasm that affects patients worldwide. It has been shown that Wilms' tumor 1-associating protein (WTAP) is frequently upregulated in various cancers. However, the potential role of WTAP in HCC remains largely unknown.

Methods: The expression levels of WTAP in human HCC tissues were determined by the western blotting and immunohistochemical (IHC) staining. A correlation between the WTAP expression, clinicopathological features, and the HCC prognosis was analyzed. The WTAP expression was silenced by short hairpin RNA (shRNA), and effects of the knockdown of WTAP on the proliferation and invasion of HCC cells were assessed. The microRNAs (miRNAs) involved in the regulation of the WTAP expression were identified by a bioinformatics analysis and further confirmed by in vitro assays.

Results: The expression levels of WTAP in liver cancer tissues were significantly elevated and compared with those in the adjacent normal tissues and significantly correlated with the clinical stage and prognosis in patients with HCC. Further investigation revealed that the knockdown of WTAP drastically suppressed HCC cell proliferation and invasion abilities. Luciferase reporter assay and validation experiments confirmed that WTAP was a direct target of miR-139-5p. Moreover, the overexpression of WTAP could partly abolish the inhibitory effects of miR-139-5p on the HCC cell growth and invasion. Mechanistically, we revealed that the miR-139-5p/WTAP axis regulated the HCC progression by controlling the epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT).

Conclusions: In summary, the results indicate that WTAP is a potential oncogene in HCC and miR-139-5p negatively regulates the WTAP expression. MiR-139-5p/WTAP can be utilized as a potential therapeutic target for HCC.

hMex-3A is associated with poor prognosis and contributes to the progression of hepatocellular carcinoma

BACKGROUND

HMex-3A, an RNA-binding protein, was found to be associated with tumorigenesis. However, the roles of hMex-3A in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) progression remained unclear.

METHODS

The different expression of hMex-3A between HCC tissues and non-tumor tissues was evaluated using The Cancer Genome Atlas database. Thereafter, the hMex-3A expression was evaluated in HCC tissues using Western blotting and qRT-PCR. Immunohistochemistry was performed to investigate the association between hMex-3A level and clinicopathological features including prognosis in HCC patients. In addition, we used si-hMex-3A to knockdown hMex-3A in HCC cells to test Cell Counting Kit-8, colony formation, cell migration and invasion.

RESULTS

The hMex-3A expression was significantly elevated in HCC tissues. Analysis of the clinicopathological parameters suggested that hMex-3A expression was significantly associated with pathological grade (P = 0.019) and TNM stage (P = 0.001) in HCC. Moreover, univariate and multivariate Cox-regression analyses revealed that high hMex-3A expression (HR = 1.491, 95% CI: 1.107-2.007; P = 0.009) was an independent risk factor for overall survival in HCC patients. Finally, we confirmed that si-hMex-3A could significantly inhibit HCC cell proliferation, migration, and invasion in vitro.

CONCLUSIONS

HMex-3A may contribute to the progression of HCC and might be used as a novel therapeutic target and prognostic marker in HCC.

Extracellular Vesicles Loaded miRNAs as Potential Modulators Shared Between Glioblastoma, and Parkinson's and Alzheimer's Diseases

Glioblastoma (GBM) is the deadliest brain tumor. Its poor prognosis is due to cell heterogeneity, invasiveness, and high vascularization that impede an efficient therapeutic approach. In the past few years, several molecular links connecting GBM to neurodegenerative diseases (NDDs) were identified at preclinical and clinical level. In particular, giving the increasing critical role that epigenetic alterations play in both GBM and NDDs, we deeply analyzed the role of miRNAs, small non-coding RNAs acting epigenetic modulators in several key biological processes. Specific miRNAs, transported by extracellular vesicles (EVs), act as intercellular communication signals in both diseases. In this way, miRNA-loaded EVs modulate GBM tumorigenesis, as they spread oncogenic signaling within brain parenchyma, and control the aggregation of neurotoxic protein (Tau, Aβ-amyloid peptide, and α-synuclein) in NDDs. In this review, we highlight the most promising miRNAs linking GBM and NDDs playing a significant pathogenic role in both diseases.

High-metastatic cancer cells derived exosomal miR92a-3p promotes epithelial-mesenchymal transition and metastasis of low-metastatic cancer cells by regulating PTEN/Akt pathway in hepatocellular carcinoma

Exosomes play an important role in intercellular communication and metastatic progression of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, cellular communication between heterogeneous HCC cells with different metastatic potentials and the resultant cancer progression are not fully understood in HCC. Here, HCC cells with high-metastatic capacity (97hm and Huhm) were constructed by continually exerting selective pressure on primary HCC cells (MHCC-97H and Huh7). Through performing exosomal miRNA sequencing in HCC cells with different metastatic potentials (MHCC-97H and 97hm), many significantly different miRNA candidates were found. Among these miRNAs, miR-92a-3p was the most abundant miRNA in the exosomes of highly metastatic HCC cells. Exosomal miR92a-3p was also found enriched in the plasma of HCC patient-derived xenograft mice (PDX) model with high-metastatic potential. Exosomal miR-92a-3p promotes epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in recipient cancer cells via targeting PTEN and regulating its downstream Akt/Snail signaling. Furthermore, through mRNA sequencing in HCC cells with different metastatic potentials and predicting potential transcription factors of miR92a-3p, upregulated transcript factors E2F1 and c-Myc were found in high-metastatic HCC cells promote the expression of cellular and exosomal miR-92a-3p in HCC by directly binding the promoter of its host gene, miR17HG. Clinical data showed that a high plasma exosomal miR92a-3p level was correlated with shortened overall survival and disease-free survival, indicating poor prognosis in HCC patients. In conclusion, hepatoma-derived exosomal miR92a-3p plays a critical role in the EMT progression and promoting metastasis by inhibiting PTEN and activating Akt/Snail signaling. Exosomal miR92a-3p is a potential predictive biomarker for HCC metastasis, and this may provoke the development of novel therapeutic and preventing strategies against metastasis of HCC.

A panel of eight microRNAs is a good predictive parameter for triple-negative breast cancer relapse

Rationale: Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), which has the highest recurrence rate and shortest survival time of all breast cancers, is in urgent need of a risk assessment method to determine an accurate treatment course. Recently, miRNA expression patterns have been identified as potential biomarkers for diagnosis, prognosis, and personalized therapy. Here, we investigate a combination of candidate miRNAs as a clinically applicable signature that can precisely predict relapse in TNBC patients after surgery. Methods: Four total cohorts of training (TCGA_TNBC and GEOD-40525) and validation (GSE40049 and GSE19783) datasets were analyzed with logistic regression and Gaussian mixture analyses. We established a miRNA signature risk model and identified an 8-miRNA signature for the prediction of TNBC relapse. Results: The miRNA signature risk model identified ten candidate miRNAs in the training set. By combining 8 of the 10 miRNAs (miR-139-5p, miR-10b-5p, miR-486-5p, miR-455-3p, miR-107, miR-146b-5p, miR-324-5p and miR-20a-5p), an accurate predictive model of relapse in TNBC patients was established and was highly correlated with prognosis (AUC of 0.80). Subsequently, this 8-miRNA signature prognosticated relapse in the two validation sets with AUCs of 0.89 and 0.90. Conclusion: The 8-miRNA signature predictive model may help clinicians provide a prognosis for TNBC patients with a high risk of recurrence after surgery and provide further personalized treatment to decrease the chance of relapse.

B3GNT3, a Direct Target of miR-149-5p, Promotes Lung Cancer Development and Indicates Poor Prognosis of Lung Cancer

Background

B3GNT3 (β1, 3-N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase-3) belongs to the β3GlcNAcT family and is essential to form extended core 1 oligosaccharides. Previous studies revealed that B3GNT3 expression was dysregulated in multiple cancers. Here, we aimed to understand the expression profile and function of B3GNT3 in lung cancer.

Materials and Methods

The expression of B3GNT3 was measured by immunohistochemistry and public database analysis. B3GNT3 was knocked down to evaluate the lung cancer cell proliferation, migration and invasion in in vitro and in vivo tumor formation experiments. miR-149-5p targeting B3GNT3 was identified with TargetScan analysis and confirmed with reporter assay. Overexpression of miR-149-5p was achieved using microRNA mimics and function of microRNA-149-5p/B3GNT3 axis was tested in vitro.

Results

B3GNT3 was upregulated in lung cancer, and B3GNT3 overexpression was associated with poor prognosis of lung cancer patients. High expression of B3GNT3 was associated with advanced TNM stages, larger tumor size, tumor metastasis and recurrence. Functionally, we demonstrated that knockdown of B3GNT3 suppressed lung cancer cell growth and invasion in vitro. Knockdown of B3GNT3 suppressed lung cancer development in a xenograft tumor model. Moreover, miR-149-5p was validated to negatively regulate B3GNT3 expression through directly targeting B3GNT3 3ʹ-UTR. Overexpression of miR-149-5p could antagonize the tumorigenesis effect of B3GNT3 in vitro.

Conclusion

In summary, our study demonstrated that B3GNT3 overexpression was correlated with poor prognosis of lung cancer patient, indicating that B3GNT3 could be a promising prognostic biomarker for lung cancer. miR-149-5p negatively regulated B3GNT3 expression, which might be utilized for therapeutic target in lung cancer.

Expression Status And Prognostic Value Of M6A-associated Genes in Gastric Cancer

Purpose: Gastric cancer (GC) is a primary cause of cancer-associated mortality worldwide. N6-methyladenosine (m6A) is one of the most common RNA modifications that involves in the progression of numerous cancers. However, the expression status and function of m6A-related genes in gastric cancer is still not well understood. The current study is aimed to investigate the expression status and determinate prognostic value of m6A-related genes in gastric cancer.

Methods: m6A-asssociated gene expression was evaluated via analyzing the expression data of GC patients from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. The protein expression levels of m6A-associated molecules were further validated by immunohistochemical (IHC) staining data from GC tissue microarray (TMA) cohort and Human Protein Atlas (HPA) database. Kaplan-Meier analysis was performed to assess the prognostic value of m6A-associated genes in gastric cancer. Risk score model was established by lasso COX regression analysis and its prognostic predicted efficiency was assessed by the receiver-operator characteristic (ROC) curve. Cox regression analyses were used for exploring risk factors related to GC patient prognosis.

Results: Most of m6A-related genes were upregulated at both mRNA and protein levels in gastric cancer tissues compared with that in normal gastric tissues. The expression levels of m6A-related genes were associated with clinicopathological features including race, age and TNM stage. High expression of WTAP and FTO predicted poor prognosis of GC patients. Survival analysis demonstrated that patients with high-risk scores had worse overall survival (OS) and ROC curves suggested the prediction performance for gastric patients. Moreover, Cox regression analyses indicated that m6A risk model score was a prognostic factor for OS and FTO upregulation might be a potential independent prognostic factor for recurrence-free survival (RFS) in gastric cancer patients.

Conclusion: m6A-related genes were dysregulated in GC and were closely associated with prognosis of GC patients. FTO might serve as a novel prognostic biomarker for gastric cancer, while the m6A-related risk score might be informative for risk assessment and prognostic stratification.

DNA Methylation and Micro-RNAs: The Most Recent and Relevant Biomarkers in the Early Diagnosis of Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a frequently encountered cancer type, and its alarming incidence is explained by genetic and epigenetic alterations. Epigenetic changes may represent diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers of HCC. In this review we discussed deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) hypomethylation, DNA hypermethylation, and aberrant expression of small non-coding ribonucleic acid (RNA), which could be useful new biomarkers in the early diagnosis of HCC. We selected the articles on human subjects published in English over the past two years involving diagnostic markers detected in body fluids, cancer diagnosis made on histopathological exam, and a control group of those with benign liver disease or without liver disease. These biomarkers need further investigation in clinical trials to develop clinical applications for early diagnosis and management of HCC.