Search results for "microRNAs"

miRNA detection methods and clinical implications in lung cancer

2014

[EN] Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death worldwide. Therefore, advances in the diagnosis and treatment of the disease are urgently needed. miRNAs are a family of small, noncoding RNAs that regulate gene expression at the transcriptional level. miRNAs have been reported to be deregulated and to play a critical role in different types of cancer, including lung cancer. Thus, miRNA profiling in lung cancer patients has become the core of several investigations. To this end, the development of a multitude of platforms for miRNA profiling analysis has been essential. This article focuses on the different technologies available for assessing miRNAs and the most important results obtai…

Epigenomics in acute cerebrovascular diseases.

2020

MicroRNAs in colorectal cancer stem cells: new regulators of cancer stemness?

2012

Recently, the hypothesis that colorectal tumors originate from a subpopulation of cells called ‘cancer stem cells' (CSCs) or tumor-initiating cells, which exhibit stem-like features, has been confirmed experimentally in various human cancers. Several studies have confirmed the existence of colorectal CSCs (CRCSCs) and have demonstrated that this rare cell population can be isolated by the expression of specific cell surface biomarkers. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of small non-coding RNAs, which are crucial for post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression and participate in a wide variety of biological functions, including development, cell proliferation, differentiation, metabolism…

Unknown primary tumors

2011

An unknown primary tumor (UPT) is defined by the presence of a metastatic cancer without a known primary site of origin despite a standardized diagnostic workup. Clinically, UPTs show rapid progression and early dissemination, with signs and symptoms related to the metastatic site. The molecular bases of their biology remain largely unknown, with no evidence as to whether they represent a distinct biological entity. Immunohistochemistry remain the best diagnostic tool in term of cost-effectiveness, but the time-consuming "algorithmic process" it relies on has led to the application of new molecular techniques for the identification of the primary site of UPTs. For example, several microarra…

Extracellular Vesicles-ceRNAs as Ovarian Cancer Biomarkers: Looking into circRNA-miRNA-mRNA Code

2022

Simple Summary Patients with ovarian cancer have a very poor chance of long-term survival, usually due to advanced disease at the time of diagnosis. Emerging evidence suggests that extracellular vesicles contain noncoding RNAs such as microRNAs, piwiRNAs, circular RNAs, and long noncoding RNAs, with regulatory effects on ovarian cancer. In this review, we focus on ovarian cancer-associated circular RNA shuttled by extracellular vesicles as mediators of cancer progression and novel biomarkers in liquid biopsy. We propose a circular-RNA-microRNA-mRNA code that can reveal the regulatory network created by extracellular vesicles, noncoding RNAs, and mRNAs in ovarian cancer. Future research in t…

WIN55,212-2-induced expression of Mir-29b1 favours the suppression of osteosarcoma cell migration in a SPARC-independent manner

2019

WIN55,212-2 (WIN) is a synthetic agonist of cannabinoid receptors that displays promising antitumour properties. The aim of this study is to demonstrate that WIN is able to block the migratory ability of osteosarcoma cells and characterize the mechanisms involved. Using wound healing assay and zymography, we showed that WIN affects cell migration and reduces the activity of the metalloproteases MMP2 and MMP9. This effect seemed to be independent of secreted protein acidic and rich in cysteine (SPARC), a matricellular protein involved in tissue remodeling and extracellular matrix deposition. SPARC release was indeed prevented by WIN, and SPARC silencing by RNA interference did not influence …

Analysis of Possible Mechanisms Accounting for Raf-1 Kinase Inhibitor Protein Downregulation in Hepatocellular Carcinoma

2012

Abstract Raf-1 kinase inhibitor protein (RKIP) is a tumor and metastasis suppressor that promotes drug-induced apoptosis in cancer cells. It is frequently downregulated, both at the mRNA and protein level, in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), but the mechanisms leading to this reduction are obscure. We sequenced the whole RKIP gene in three human HCC cell lines (HA22T/VGH, HepG2, and Hep3B), and in five clinical HCC samples, but could not find any gene variant that might account for their low RKIP levels. We also examined whether gene methylation may be responsible for the altered RKIP expression. No methylation of the RKIP gene was found in the tumor samples, while among the cell lines only …

miR-133a Enhances the Protective Capacity of Cardiac Progenitors Cells after Myocardial Infarction

2014

Summary miR-133a and miR-1 are known as muscle-specific microRNAs that are involved in cardiac development and pathophysiology. We have shown that both miR-1 and miR-133a are early and progressively upregulated during in vitro cardiac differentiation of adult cardiac progenitor cells (CPCs), but only miR-133a expression was enhanced under in vitro oxidative stress. miR-1 was demonstrated to favor differentiation of CPCs, whereas miR-133a overexpression protected CPCs against cell death, targeting, among others, the proapoptotic genes Bim and Bmf. miR-133a-CPCs clearly improved cardiac function in a rat myocardial infarction model by reducing fibrosis and hypertrophy and increasing vasculari…

An unconventional role for miRNA: let-7 activates Toll-like receptor 7 and causes neurodegeneration

2011

Activation of innate immune receptors by host-derived factors exacerbates CNS damage, but the identity of these factors remains elusive. We uncovered an unconventional role for the microRNA let-7, a highly abundant regulator of gene expression in the CNS, in which extracellular let-7 activates the RNA-sensing Toll-like receptor (TLR) 7 and induces neurodegeneration through neuronal TLR7. Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) from individuals with Alzheimer’s disease contains increased amounts of let-7b, and extracellular introduction of let-7b into the CSF of wild-type mice by intrathecal injection resulted in neurodegeneration. Mice lacking TLR7 were resistant to this neurodegenerative effect, but thi…

Adipose tissue, angiogenesis and angio-MIR under physiological and pathological conditions.

2019

Angiogenesis is a crucial process for the maintenance of normal tissue physiology and it is involved in tissue remodeling and regeneration. This process is essential for adipose tissue maintenance. The adipose tissue is composed by different cell types including stromal vascular cells as well as adipose stem cells (ASCs). In particular, ASCs are multipotent somatic stem cells that are able to differentiate and secrete several growth factors; they are recently emerging as a new cell reservoir for novel therapies and strategies in many diseases. Several studies suggest that ASCs have peculiar properties and participate in different disease-related processes such as angiogenesis. Furthermore, …