Retraction Note: Down-regulation of miR-133a and miR-539 are associated with unfavorable prognosis in patients suffering from osteosarcoma

The court's judgment on the true identity of the author responsible for identity fraud and the consequent batch retraction of Iranian's papers in the journal of diagnostic pathology

This letter concerns retracted papers published in the Journal of Diagnostic Pathology, where my name was misused as the author or corresponding author without my permission or knowledge. Considering that all misconducts were directed by an author during initial manuscripts' submissions, I opened a case in Iran's Cyber Police (FATA) to unravel the true identity of the submitting author. After Cyber Police's report revealed the true identity of the submitting author, the court started a thorough investigation and finally convicted the submitting author for identity fraud and data forgery through creating and using fake email addresses.

MicroRNA‑539 inhibits the proliferation and migration of gastric cancer cells by targeting SRY‑box 5 gene

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of microRNA (miR)‑539 on the proliferation and migration of gastric cancer cells, and explore the underlying mechanism. Gastric cancer cell lines with high or low miR‑539 and SRY‑box 5 (SOX5) expression levels were constructed by transfection. The proliferation of gastric cancer cells was then detected by Cell Counting Kit‑8 assay and cell migration was tested by transwell assay. The results revealed low expression of miR‑539 and high expression of SOX5 in gastric cancer tissues and cells as compared with the levels in normal tissues and cells, suggesting that there was a negative correlation between miR‑539 and SOX5. Dual‑luciferase reporter experiments demonstrated that miR‑539 directly targeted SOX5. The proliferation and migration of gastric cancer cells were negatively regulated by the overexpression of miR‑539, while positively regulated by the overexpression of SOX5. Notably, SOX5 overexpression attenuated the inhibitory effect of miR‑539 on gastric cancer cells. The results suggested that SOX5 is a target gene of miR‑539, and that miR‑539 inhibits the proliferation and migration of gastric cancer cells by targeting SOX5.

Deep RNA sequencing reveals the dynamic regulation of miRNA, lncRNAs, and mRNAs in osteosarcoma tumorigenesis and pulmonary metastasis

Osteosarcoma (OS) is the most common pediatric malignant bone tumor, and occurrence of pulmonary metastasis generally causes a rapid and fatal outcome. Here we aimed to provide clues for exploring the mechanism of tumorigenesis and pulmonary metastasis for OS by comprehensive analysis of microRNA (miRNA), long non-coding RNA (lncRNA), and mRNA expression in primary OS and OS pulmonary metastasis. In this study, deep sequencing with samples from primary OS (n = 3), pulmonary metastatic OS (n = 3), and normal controls (n = 3) was conducted and differentially expressed miRNAs (DEmiRNAs), lncRNAs (DElncRNAs), and mRNAs (DEmRNAs) between primary OS and normal controls as well as pulmonary metastatic and primary OS were identified. A total of 65 DEmiRNAs, 233 DElncRNAs, and 1405 DEmRNAs were obtained between primary OS and normal controls; 48 DEmiRNAs, 50 DElncRNAs, and 307 DEmRNAs were obtained between pulmonary metastatic and primary OS. Then, the target DEmRNAs and DElncRNAs regulated by the same DEmiRNAs were searched and the OS tumorigenesis-related and OS pulmonary metastasis-related competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) networks were constructed, respectively. Based on these ceRNA networks and Venn diagram analysis, we obtained 3 DEmiRNAs, 15 DElncRNAs, and 100 DEmRNAs, and eight target pairs including miR-223-5p/(CLSTN2, AC009951.1, LINC01705, AC090673.1), miR-378b/(ALX4, IGSF3, SULF1), and miR-323b-3p/TGFBR3 were involved in both tumorigenesis and pulmonary metastasis of OS. The TGF-β superfamily co-receptor TGFBR3, which is regulated by miR-323b-3p, acts as a tumor suppressor in OS tumorigenesis and acts as a tumor promoter in pulmonary metastatic OS via activation of the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) program.In conclusion, the OS transcriptome (miRNA, lncRNA, and mRNA) is dynamically regulated. These analyses might provide new clues to uncover the molecular mechanisms and signaling networks that contribute to OS progression, toward patient-tailored and novel-targeted treatments.

Long Non-coding RNA LINC00339 Stimulates Glioma Vasculogenic Mimicry Formation by Regulating the miR-539-5p/TWIST1/MMPs Axis

Glioma is recognized as a highly angiogenic malignant brain tumor. Vasculogenic mimicry (VM) greatly restricts the therapeutic effect of anti-angiogenic tumor therapy for glioma patients. However, the molecular mechanisms of VM formation in glioma remain unclear. Here, we demonstrated that LINC00339 was upregulated in glioma tissue as well as in glioma cell lines. The expression of LINC00339 in glioma tissues was positively correlated with glioma VM formation. Knockdown of LINC00339 inhibited glioma cell proliferation, migration, invasion, and tube formation, meanwhile downregulating the expression of VM-related molecular MMP-2 and MMP-14. Furthermore, knockdown of LINC00339 significantly increased the expression of miR-539-5p. Both bioinformatics and luciferase reporter assay revealed that LINC00339 regulated the above effects via binding to miR-539-5p. Besides, overexpression of miR-539-5p resulted in decreased expression of TWIST1, a transcription factor known to play an oncogenic role in glioma and identified as a direct target of miR-539-5p. TWIST1 upregulated the promoter activities of MMP-2 and MMP-14. The in vivo study showed that nude mice carrying tumors with knockdown of LINC00339 and overexpression of miR-539-5p exhibited the smallest tumor volume through inhibiting VM formation. In conclusion, LINC00339 may be used as a novel therapeutic target for VM formation in glioma.