A Genetic Variant of the BTLA Gene is Related to Increased Risk and Clinical Manifestations of Breast Cancer in Chinese Women.

BACKGROUND: B and T lymphocyte attenuator (BTLA), an immunoinhibitory receptor, is shown to suppress the lymphocyte activation. Several studies addressed the relationship between the BTLA rs1982809 polymorphism and the risk of cancer. PATIENTS AND METHODS: To identify the effects of this polymorphism on the risk of breast cancer (BC), this study examined Chinese women from China, Jiangsu Province. This study involved 324 patients with BC and 412 controls. RESULTS: We observed that the BTLA rs1982809 polymorphism elevated the risk of BC. A similar finding was also shown in the subgroups of premenopausal women and those aged < 55 years old. In addition, this polymorphism was correlated with the estrogen receptor status, C-erbB-2 status, Ki-67 status, TNM stage, and tumor size of patients with BC. CONCLUSIONS: Collectively, the BTLA rs1982809 polymorphism shows a significant association with elevated risk and clinical features of BC in Chinese women. Further studies involving other races are urgently needed to replicate these findings.

Knockdown of otubain 2 inhibits liver cancer cell growth by suppressing NF-κB signaling.

The deubiquitinase otubain 2 (OTUB2) has been reported to play significant roles in the tumorigenesis of several cancers, but the role of OTUB2 in liver cancer is not investigated yet. In the present study, OTUB2 was found significantly upregulated in liver cancer tumor tissues and cell lines, and elevated OTUB2 indicated as a negative index for the overall survival of liver cancer patients. At the cellular level, knockdown of OTUB2 markedly inhibited liver cancer cell growth. Our further investigations revealed that knockdown of OTUB2 significantly suppressed NF-κB-driving luciferase activity, and markedly inhibited the phosphorylation of NF-κB p65 in liver cancer cells, which indicated that OTUB2 mediated liver cancer cell growth by regulating NF-κB signaling. Additionally, we found that liver cancer cell lines harboring higher OTUB2 expression were more sensitive to NF-κB inhibitors, and overexpression of OTUB2 could significantly reduce the antitumor effects of NF-κB inhibitors in liver cancer cells. This study indicated that OTUB2 could be a promising target for the treatment of liver cancer in the future.

Estrogen-induced miR-196a elevation promotes tumor growth and metastasis via targeting SPRED1 in breast cancer.

BACKGROUND: Estrogen plays a critical role in breast cancer (BC) progression through estrogen receptor (ER)-mediated gene regulation. Emerging studies suggest that the malignant progress of BC cells is influenced by the cross talk between microRNAs (miRNAs) and ER-α signaling. However, the mechanism and functional linkage between estrogen and miRNAs remain unclear. METHODS: The expression levels of miR-196a and SPRED1 in BC were tested by qRT-PCR in 46 paired BC and adjacent tissues and by the GEO datasets. The role of miR-196a in estrogen-induced BC development was examined by CCK-8 assay, wound healing assay, Matrigel invasion assay and tumorigenicity assay in nude mice. The binding site of ER-α in miR-196a promoter region was analyzed by ChIP-seq, ChIP assay and luciferase reporter assay. The potential targets of miR-196a in BC cells were explored using the luciferase reporter assay and western blot analysis, and the correlation between miR-196a and SPRED1 was analyzed by Spearman's correlation analysis in BC specimens and GEO dataset. TCGA BRCA data was used to characterize the ESR1 signatures according to MSigDB gene set. RESULTS: The expression levels of miR-196a were higher in ER-positive (ER+) breast tumors compared to ER-negative (ER-) tumor tissue samples. Besides, miR-196a was involved in estrogen-induced BC cell proliferation, migration and invasion. Notably, the up-regulation of miR-196a was mediated by a direct interaction with estrogen receptor α (ER-α) but not estrogen receptor ß (ER-ß) in its promoter region, and miR-196a expression levels were positively correlated to ER-α signature scores. Furthermore, SPRED1 was a new direct target of miR-196a which participated in miR-196a-promoted BC development and was suppressed by ligand-activated ER-α signal pathway. Finally, forced expression of miR-196a induced tumor growth of MCF7 cells, while inhibition of miR-196a significantly suppressed the tumor progress in vivo. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, the identification of estrogen/miR-196a/SPRED1 cascade will shed light on new molecular mechanism of estrogen signaling in BC development and therapy.

MiR-30e inhibits tumor growth and chemoresistance via targeting IRS1 in Breast Cancer.

MicroRNA-30e (miR-30e) is downregulated in various tumor types. However, its mechanism in inhibiting tumor growth of breast cancer remains to be elucidated. In this study, we found that miR-30e was significantly downregulated in tumor tissues of breast cancer (BC) patients and cell lines, and overexpression of miR-30e inhibited cell proliferation, migration and invasion. To understand the potential mechanism of miR-30e in inhibiting tumor growth, we showed that miR-30e blocked the activation of AKT and ERK1/2 pathways, and the expression of HIF-1α and VEGF via directly targeting IRS1. Moreover, miR-30e regulates cell proliferation, migration, invasion and increases chemosensitivity of MDA-MB-231 cells to paclitaxel by inhibiting its target IRS1. MiR-30e also inhibited tumor growth and suppressed expression of IRS1, AKT, ERK1/2 and HIF-1α in mouse xenograft tumors. To test the clinical relevance of these results, we used 40 pairs of BC tissues and adjacent normal tissues, analyzed the levels of miR-30e and IRS1 expression in these tissues, and found that miR-30e levels were significantly inversely correlated with IRS1 levels in these BC tissues, suggesting the important implication of our findings in translational application for BC diagnostics and treatment in the future.

Galangin potentiates human breast cancer to apoptosis induced by TRAIL through activating AMPK.

Breast cancer is reported as the most frequent tumor with limited treatments among the female worldwide. Galangin, a natural active compound 3, 5, 7-trihydroxyflavone, is a type of bioflavonoid isolated from the Alpinia galangal root and suggested to induce apoptosis in various cancers. Tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL) is an effective anti-tumor agent for human breast cancer. Promoted expression of CHOP, a down-streaming transcription factor for endoplasmic reticulum stress (ER stress), enhanced death factor 4 (DR4) activity and accelerated reactive oxygen species (ROS) as well as cell death. Adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase (AMPK) is crucial for various cancers mortality. In the present study, galangin regulated ER stress to augment CHOP and DR4 expression levels, sensitizing TRAIL activity, leading to human breast cancer cell apoptosis through Caspase-3 activation, which was associated with AMPK phosphorylation. In addition, AMPK inhibition and silence reduced anti-cancer activity of galangin and TRAIL in combinational treatment. Hence, our study indicated that galangin could effectively stimulate human breast cancer cells to TRAIL-induced apoptosis through TRAIL/Caspase-3/AMPK signaling pathway. AMPK signaling pathway activation by galangin might be of benefit for promoting the effects of TRAIL-regulated anti-tumor therapeutic strategy.

Estrogen regulates miRNA expression: implication of estrogen receptor and miR-124/AKT2 in tumor growth and angiogenesis.

It is currently known that estrogen plays an important role in breast cancer (BC) development, but the underlying molecular mechanism remains to be elucidated. Accumulating evidence has revealed important roles of microRNAs in various kinds of human cancers, including BC. In this study, we found that among the microRNAs regulated by estrogen, miR-124 was the most prominent downregulated miRNA. miR-124 was downregulated by estradiol (E2) treatment in estrogen receptor (ER) positive BC cells, miR-124 overexpression suppressed cell proliferation, migration and invasion in BC cells; while the suppression of miR-124 using Anti-miR-124 inhibitor had opposite cellular functions. Under the E2 treatment, miR-124 had stronger effect to inhibit cellular functions in MCF7 cells than that in MDA-MB-231 cells. In addition, we identified that ERα, but not ERß, was required for E2-induced miR-124 downregulation. Furthermore, AKT2, a known oncogene, was a novel direct target of miR-124. AKT2 expression levels were inversely correlated with miR-124 expression levels in human breast cancer specimens. AKT2 was overexpressed in BC specimens, and its expression levels were much higher in ERα positive cancer tissues than those ERα negative cancer tissues. Consistent with miR-124 suppression, E2 treatment increased AKT2 expression levels in MCF7 cells via ERα. Finally, overexpression of miR-124 in MCF7 cells significantly suppressed tumor growth and angiogenesis by targeting AKT2. Our results provide a mechanistic insight into a functional role of new ERα/miR-124/AKT2 signaling pathway in BC development. miR-124 and AKT2 may be used as biomarkers for ERα positive BC and therapeutic effect in the future.

Whole mitochondrial genome sequence and mutations of the hypertension model inbred rat strain (Muridae; Rattus).

We reported the complete mitochondrial genome sequencing of a important hypertension model inbred rat strain for the first time. The total length of the mitogenome was 16,310 bp. It harbored 13 protein-coding genes, 2 ribosomal RNA genes, 22 transfer RNA genes and 1 non-coding control region. The mutation events contained in this strain were also reported.

[Involvement of epidermal growth factor receptor signaling pathway in tamoxifen resistance of MCF-7 cells].

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE: Tamoxifen (TAM) is an important endocrine therapeutic drug used in combined treatment for breast cancer. However the drug resistant effect of TAM has become a major concern in clinical use. Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) is expressed in many tumors and the expression of EGFR in breast cancer tissues is associated with poor prognosis. This study was to investigate EGFR signaling pathway in the drug resistant effect of TAM in breast cancer cells. METHODS: An estrogen receptor (ER) positive breast cancer cell line, MCF-7 was incubated with TAM (10(-7) mol/L) for up to 6 months to produce drug resistant cells. mRNA and protein expression of EGFR signaling pathway related genes and ER gene was analyzed by fluorescent quantitation reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (fqRT-PCR) and Western blot. AG1478, an EGFR inhibitor, was also used to study the drug resistant effect of TAM. RESULTS: The proliferation of MCF-7 cells was inhibited in the early stage after TAM treatment. However the inhibitory effect vanished after continuous 6-month treatment and the cell proliferation rate returned back to normal. The tolerance of MCF-7 cells to TAM was confirmed by cell growth inhibitory test. In TAM resistant MCF-7 cells, the expression of EGFR mRNA was increased by 4.5 times and the protein expression of EGFR, phosphorylation-extracellular signal-regulated kinase (p-ERK1/2) was also increased dramatically (P<0.05). While ER protein expression remained unchanged. Moreover the drug resistant cells were identified more sensitive to AG1478. CONCLUSION: In endocrine therapy, TAM resistant breast cancer cells are likely to be generated by the activation of EGFR signaling pathway after long-term TAM treatment, and EGFR inhibitors might increase the therapeutic effects in breast cancer treatment.