scholarly journals Role of MicroRNAs in Treatment Response in Prostate Cancer

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (10) ◽  
pp. 929-944 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anshuli Razdan ◽  
Paul de Souza ◽  
Tara Laurine Roberts

Prostate cancer (PCa) is the most common non-skin cancer in men worldwide, resulting in significant mortality and morbidity. Depending on the grade and stage of the cancer, patients may be given radiation therapy, hormonal therapy, or chemotherapy. However, more than half of these patients develop resistance to treatment, leading to disease progression and metastases, often with lethal consequences. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short, non-coding RNAs, which regulate numerous physiological as well as pathological processes, including cancer. miRNAs mediate their regulatory effect predominately by binding to the 3′-untranslated region (UTR) of their target mRNAs. In this review, we will describe the mechanisms by which miRNAs mediate resistance to radiation and drug therapy (i.e. hormone therapy and chemotherapy) in PCa, including control of apoptosis, cell growth and proliferation, autophagy, epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT), invasion and metastasis, and cancer stem cells (CSCs). Furthermore, we will discuss the utility of circulating miRNAs isolated from different body fluids of prostate cancer patients as non-invasive biomarkers of cancer detection, disease progression, and therapy response. Finally, we will shortlist the candidate miRNAs, which may have a role in drug and radioresistance, that could potentially be used as predictive biomarkers of treatment response.

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (40) ◽  
pp. eaaz3849
Author(s):  
Francesca Rivello ◽  
Kinga Matuła ◽  
Aigars Piruska ◽  
Minke Smits ◽  
Niven Mehra ◽  
...  

Despite their important role in metastatic disease, no general method to detect circulating stromal cells (CStCs) exists. Here, we present the Metabolic Assay-Chip (MA-Chip) as a label-free, droplet-based microfluidic approach allowing single-cell extracellular pH measurement for the detection and isolation of highly metabolically active cells (hm-cells) from the tumor microenvironment. Single-cell mRNA-sequencing analysis of the hm-cells from metastatic prostate cancer patients revealed that approximately 10% were canonical EpCAM+ hm-CTCs, 3% were EpCAM− hm-CTCs with up-regulation of prostate-related genes, and 87% were hm-CStCs with profiles characteristic for cancer-associated fibroblasts, mesenchymal stem cells, and endothelial cells. Kaplan-Meier analysis shows that metastatic prostate cancer patients with more than five hm-cells have a significantly poorer survival probability than those with zero to five hm-cells. Thus, prevalence of hm-cells is a prognosticator of poor outcome in prostate cancer, and a potentially predictive and therapy response biomarker for agents cotargeting stromal components and preventing epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition.


2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (9) ◽  
pp. 2199
Author(s):  
Titus Ime Ekanem ◽  
Chi-Chen Huang ◽  
Ming-Heng Wu ◽  
Ding-Yen Lin ◽  
Wen-Fu T. Lai ◽  
...  

Acrylamide (AA) and glycidamide (GA) can be produced in carbohydrate-rich food when heated at a high temperature, which can induce a malignant transformation. It has been demonstrated that GA is more mutagenic than AA. It has been shown that the proliferation rate of some cancer cells are increased by treatment with GA; however, the exact genes that are induced by GA in most cancer cells are not clear. In the present study, we demonstrated that GA promotes the growth of prostate cancer cells through induced protein expression of the cell cycle regulator. In addition, we also found that GA promoted the migratory ability of prostate cancer cells through induced epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT)-associated protein expression. In order to understand the potential prognostic relevance of GA-mediated regulators of the cell cycle and EMT, we present a three-gene signature to evaluate the prognosis of prostate cancer patients. Further investigations suggested that the three-gene signature (CDK4, TWIST1 and SNAI2) predicted the chances of survival better than any of the three genes alone for the first time. In conclusion, we suggested that the three-gene signature model can act as marker of GA exposure. Hence, this multi-gene panel may serve as a promising outcome predictor and potential therapeutic target in prostate cancer patients.


Cancers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 2380
Author(s):  
Valentina Doldi ◽  
Rihan El Bezawy ◽  
Nadia Zaffaroni

Prostate cancer (PCa) is the second most common tumor in men worldwide, and the fifth leading cause of male cancer-related deaths in western countries. PC is a very heterogeneous disease, meaning that optimal clinical management of individual patients is challenging. Depending on disease grade and stage, patients can be followed in active surveillance protocols or undergo surgery, radiotherapy, hormonal therapy, and chemotherapy. Although therapeutic advancements exist in both radiatiotherapy and chemotherapy, in a considerable proportion of patients, the treatment remains unsuccessful, mainly due to tumor poor responsiveness and/or recurrence and metastasis. microRNAs (miRNAs), small noncoding RNAs that epigenetically regulate gene expression, are essential actors in multiple tumor-related processes, including apoptosis, cell growth and proliferation, autophagy, epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition, invasion, and metastasis. Given that these processes are deeply involved in cell response to anti-cancer treatments, miRNAs have been considered as key determinants of tumor treatment response. In this review, we provide an overview on main PCa-related miRNAs and describe the biological mechanisms by which specific miRNAs concur to determine PCa response to radiation and drug therapy. Additionally, we illustrate whether miRNAs can be considered novel therapeutic targets or tools on the basis of the consequences of their expression modulation in PCa experimental models.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruo-Kai Lin ◽  
Chih-Ming Su ◽  
Shih-Yun Lin ◽  
Le Thi Anh Thu ◽  
Phui-Ly Liew ◽  
...  

Abstract Background:Approximately 25% of patients with early-stage breast cancer experience cancer progression throughout the disease course. Alterations in TMEM240 in breast cancer were identified and investigated to monitor treatment response and disease progression.Methods:Circulating methylated TMEM240 in the plasma of breast cancer patients was used to monitor treatment response and relapse events. Illumina methylation arrays were used to identify novel hypermethylated CpG sites and genes related to poor hormone therapy response. Quantitative methylation-specific real-time polymerase chain reaction (QMSP), quantitative real-time reverse transcription PCR, and immunohistochemical analyses were performed to measure DNA methylation, mRNA and protein expression levels in 335 breast samples from Taiwanese and Korean patients. Kaplan–Meier curves, Cox proportional hazards regression and receiver operating characteristic curves were used to analyze 10-year survival and disease progression. The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) dataset was used to investigate TMEM240 alterations in Western countries. Transient transfection and knockdown of TMEM240 were performed to determine its biological functions and its relationship to hormone drug treatment response in breast cancer cells.Results: Aberrant methylated TMEM240 was identified in breast cancer patients with poor hormone therapy response using genome-wide methylation analysis in the Taiwan and TCGA breast cancer cohorts. A cell model showed that TMEM240, which is localized to the cell membrane and cytoplasm, represses breast cancer cell proliferation and cell migration. TMEM240 protein expression was observed in normal breast tissues, but not detected in 88.2% (67/76) of breast tumors and in 90.0% (9/10) of metastatic tumors from breast cancer patients. Almost all triple-negative breast cancer patients (95.7%, 22/23) had deficient TMEM240 protein expression. QMSP revealed that in 54.5% (55/101) of Taiwanese breast cancer patients, the methylation level of TMEM240 was at least 2-fold higher in tumor tissues than in the matched normal breast tissues. Patients with hypermethylation of TMEM240 had poor 10-year overall survival (p = 0.003) and poor treatment response, especially hormone therapy response (p < 0.001). Prediction of disease progression based on circulating methylated TMEM240 was found to have 87.5% sensitivity, 93.1% specificity, and 90.2% accuracy, better than the currently used biomarkers CEA and CA-153.Conclusions: Circulating methylated TMEM240 is a potential biomarker for treatment response and disease progression monitoring in breast cancer.


Author(s):  
Patricia de la Cruz-Ojeda ◽  
Elena Navarro-Villarán ◽  
María I. Gómez-Espejo ◽  
Sandra Dios-Barbeito ◽  
Inés Fernández-Luque ◽  
...  

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) enumeration is a promising technique to predict cancer prognosis and treatment response. CTCs were evaluated in healthy subjects, cirrhotic controls and hepatocarcinoma (HCC) patients. CTCs were isolated using microfluidic system based on the expression of EpCAM, EGFR and three epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) markers. Patients were stratified according to disease progression and exitus. Although counts of individual CTCs, clustered CTCs and &alpha;-fetoprotein (AFP) at basal level in patients with HCC were significantly increased compared with the values obtained in cirrhotic patients and control subjects, only individual CTCs (p=0.027), but not clustered CTCs (p=0.063) and AFP (p=0.072), were independent predictors of HCC development. The univariate regression model showed that basal levels of CTCs46 were related to high risk of HCC (Odds Ratio 3.467, p=0.011). The stratification of our cohort according to disease progression and death showed that basal individual CTCs 76 (Hazard Ratio 5.131, p=0.004) were related to disease progression, as well as the difference of clustered CTCs between 1-month and baseline levels 1.5 were related to death (Hazard Ratio 10.204, p=0.036). In conclusion, the preoperative and 1-month measurements of CTCs in blood constitute useful markers to predict the outcome of patients under TACE treatment.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chahat Mehra ◽  
Ji-Hyun Chung ◽  
Yi He ◽  
Mónica Lara-Márquez ◽  
Marie-Anne Goyette ◽  
...  

AbstractHigh mortality of prostate cancer patients is primarily due to metastasis. Understanding the mechanisms controlling metastatic processes remains essential to develop novel therapies designed to prevent the progression from localized disease to metastasis. CdGAP plays important roles in the control of cell adhesion, migration, and proliferation, which are central to cancer progression. Here we show that elevated CdGAP expression is associated with early biochemical recurrence and bone metastasis in prostate cancer patients. Knockdown of CdGAP in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) PC-3 and 22Rv1 cells reduces cell motility, invasion, and proliferation while inducing apoptosis in CdGAP-depleted PC-3 cells. Conversely, overexpression of CdGAP in DU-145, 22Rv1, and LNCaP cells increases cell migration and invasion. Using global gene expression approaches, we found that CdGAP regulates the expression of genes involved in epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition, apoptosis and cell cycle progression. Subcutaneous injection of CdGAP-depleted PC-3 cells into mice shows a delayed tumor initiation and attenuated tumor growth. Orthotopic injection of CdGAP-depleted PC-3 cells reduces distant metastasic burden. Collectively, these findings support a pro-oncogenic role of CdGAP in prostate tumorigenesis and unveil CdGAP as a potential biomarker and target for prostate cancer treatments.


2014 ◽  
Vol 20 (24) ◽  
pp. 6559-6569 ◽  
Author(s):  
Murali Gururajan ◽  
Sajni Josson ◽  
Gina Chia-Yi Chu ◽  
Chia-Lun Lu ◽  
Yi-Tsung Lu ◽  
...  

Oncogene ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 40 (13) ◽  
pp. 2355-2366
Author(s):  
Laura C. A. Galbraith ◽  
Ernest Mui ◽  
Colin Nixon ◽  
Ann Hedley ◽  
David Strachan ◽  
...  

AbstractPeroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor Gamma (PPARG) is one of the three members of the PPAR family of transcription factors. Besides its roles in adipocyte differentiation and lipid metabolism, we recently demonstrated an association between PPARG and metastasis in prostate cancer. In this study a functional effect of PPARG on AKT serine/threonine kinase 3 (AKT3), which ultimately results in a more aggressive disease phenotype was identified. AKT3 has previously been shown to regulate PPARG co-activator 1 alpha (PGC1α) localisation and function through its action on chromosome maintenance region 1 (CRM1). AKT3 promotes PGC1α localisation to the nucleus through its inhibitory effects on CRM1, a known nuclear export protein. Collectively our results demonstrate how PPARG over-expression drives an increase in AKT3 levels, which in turn has the downstream effect of increasing PGC1α localisation within the nucleus, driving mitochondrial biogenesis. Furthermore, this increase in mitochondrial mass provides higher energetic output in the form of elevated ATP levels which may fuel the progression of the tumour cell through epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) and ultimately metastasis.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (9) ◽  
pp. 5019
Author(s):  
Helena Oliveres ◽  
David Pesántez ◽  
Joan Maurel

Insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor (IGF1R) is a receptor tyrosine kinase that regulates cell growth and proliferation. Upregulation of the IGF1R pathway constitutes a common paradigm shared with other receptor tyrosine kinases such as EGFR, HER2, and MET in different cancer types, including colon cancer. The main IGF1R signaling pathways are PI3K-AKT and MAPK-MEK. However, different processes, such as post-translational modification (SUMOylation), epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT), and microenvironment complexity, can also contribute to intrinsic and acquired resistance. Here, we discuss new strategies for adequate drug development in metastatic colorectal cancer patients.


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