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Background/aim: We investigated the prognostic influence of both hepatoma-derived growth factor (HDGF) and p53 expression in head and neck cancer., Materials and Methods: HDGF and p53 immunostaining was scored based on staining intensities and percentage of tumor cells stained using tissue microarray composed of total 102 head and neck cancer samples., Results: Over-expression of HDGF and p53 was observed in cancer compared with adjacent normal tissues (p<0.001). In multivariate analyses, tumors with higher nuclear and cytoplasmic HDGF staining scores (p=0.019), and tumors with cN1-cN2 (compared with cN0) (p=0.014), were associated with worse overall survival., Conclusion: The increased expression of HDGF and p53 in the tumor compared with adjacent normal tissues could be a risk factor for tumorigenesis. Increased nuclear and cytoplasmic expression of HDGF, and cN staging correlated with overall survival and negatively influenced prognosis in head and neck cancer., (Copyright © 2021 International Institute of Anticancer Research (Dr. George J. Delinasios), All rights reserved.)

Background/aim: Lipopolysaccharide-induced tumor necrosis factor alpha factor (LITAF) has been identified as a tumor suppressor in human cancers. Present study, we assessed biological role of LITAF in human gastric cancer., Materials and Methods: The clinical impacts of LITAF expression were assessed in gastric cancer using public databases. The biological role of LITAF was assessed in gastric cancer cells using siLITAF transfection., Results: High LITAF expression was correlated well with worse prognosis, including pathological stage (p=0.034) and pathological T stage (p=0.047), as well as with shorter survival. Herein, we present a novel finding that miR-1-3p could inhibit LITAF expression by directly binding to the 3'-untranslated region of LITAF mRNA. Cell functional assays revealed that LITAF knockdown could significantly suppress gastric cancer growth and motility., Conclusion: High LITAF expression resulting from low miR-1-3p expression is a biomarker for poor prognosis or therapeutic targets in gastric cancer., (Copyright© 2020, International Institute of Anticancer Research (Dr. George J. Delinasios), All rights reserved.)

Background/aim: Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are noncoding transcripts that are >200 nucleotides in length. However, the biological functions and regulation mechanisms of lncRNAs in gastric carcinogenesis remain unknown., Materials and Methods: The expression levels of Linc00472 were analyzed by real-time PCR. The DNA methylation status was assessed using Combined Bisulfite Restriction Analysis (COBRA). The biological role of Linc00472 was assessed in AGS cells with Linc00472 overexpression., Results: Using the next-generation sequencing approach, we identified DNA methylation-associated lncRNAs in gastric cancer cells. Among them, the expression level of Linc00472 significantly decreased in gastric cancer tissues compared to adjacent normal tissues. Furthermore, we observed a more frequent hypermethylation of CpG islands upstream of Linc00472 in gastric cancer tissues. Ectopic Linc00472 expression could significantly inhibit gastric cancer cell growth and migration., Conclusion: Epigenetically regulated Linc00472 expression plays a crucial role in modulating gastric cancer cell growth and motility., (Copyright© 2019, International Institute of Anticancer Research (Dr. George J. Delinasios), All rights reserved.)

Background/aim: Long-term exposure to betel quid (BQ)-, cigarette-, and alcohol-induced chronic inflammation is a crucial risk factor for oral and pharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OPSCC) progression. We analyzed the genotypes of stromal-cell-derived factor-1 (SDF-1) and CXC-chemokine receptor-4 (CXCR4) and determined the association between their polymorphisms and the risk of OPSCC., Materials and Methods: This study consisted of 452 patients with pathologically proved OPSCC and 424 sex- and age-matched cancer-free controls. The genotypes of SDF-1 and CXCR4 were detected through the TaqMan real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method., Results: Our data indicated that the C allele and C/C genotypes of CXCR4 were significantly associated with OPSCC [adjusted odds ratio (AOR)=1.41, 95% confidence interval (CI):1.02-1.96, p=0.037 and AOR=1.51, 95% CI:1.05-2.17, p=0.028, respectively] and OSCC (AOR=1.41, 95%CI:1.00-2.00, p=0.049 and AOR=1.49, 95%CI:1.01-2.20, p=0.044, respectively) risk. Patients with genetic polymorphisms of the genotype combination SDF-1/CXCR4 had a higher risk of OSCC (p trend=0.033). We analyzed the effects of CXCR4 genetic variants on susceptibility to OPSCC in patients with different risk habits of BQ chewing, tobacco smoking and alcohol consumption, and revealed that C/T+T/T genotypes exerted an increased risk only in patients with one (AOR=2.68, p=0.036) or two risk habits (AOR=2.02, p=0.027) compared to patients with the C/C genotype., Conclusion: We concluded that CXCR4 C>T can be used as a genetic marker of susceptibility to OPSCC, particularly in OPSCC patients with one or two types of risk habits with a synergistic effect., (Copyright© 2019, International Institute of Anticancer Research (Dr. George J. Delinasios), All rights reserved.)

Background/aim: Bladder cancer is the most common malignancy involving the urinary system. The mortality rate in late stages remains high, thus the development of effective biomarkers for diagnosis or prognosis is required in order to improve patient survival rates. Tight junction protein 1 (TJP1) is a membrane-associated protein that helps modulate cell-cell contact. However, the role of TJP1 in bladder cancer progression remains unclear., Materials and Methods: The expression levels of TJP1 and miR-455-5p were examined by analyzing The Cancer Genome Atlas database. The biological role of TJP1 and miR-455-5p were assessed in T24 cells with siTJP1 or miR-455-5p mimics transfection, respectively., Results: High levels of expression of TJP1 were significantly correlated with poor lymph node metastasis (pN stage; p=0.004). Knockdown of the TJP1 gene expression led to significant decrease of the growth and invasion of T24 cells. Using a bioinformatics approach, miR-455-5p was shown to suppress TJP1 expression by directly targeting its 3' prime untranslated region in bladder cancer cells. The ectopic expression of miR-455-5p revealed that bladder cancer cell migration, invasion, and proliferation were significantly suppressed., Conclusion: In summary, our results indicate that dysfunction of the miR-455-TJP1 axis is involved in bladder cancer cell growth and metastasis. These findings highlight potential therapeutic targets or putative biomarkers for bladder cancer., (Copyright© 2018, International Institute of Anticancer Research (Dr. George J. Delinasios), All rights reserved.)

Background/aim: Breast cancer is a common type of cancer in women, and metastasis frequently leads to therapy failure. Using next-generation sequencing (NGS), we aspired to identify the optimal differentially expressed genes (DEGs) for use as prognostic biomarkers for breast cancer., Materials and Methods: NGS was used to determine transcriptome profiles in breast cancer tissues and their corresponding adjacent normal tissues from three patients with breast cancer., Results: Herein, 15 DEGs (fold change >4 and <0.25) involved in extracellular matrix (ECM)-receptor interaction signaling were identified through NGS. Among them, our data indicated that high HMMR expression levels were correlated with a poor pathological stage (p<0.001) and large tumor size (p<0.001), whereas high COL6A6 and Reelin (RELN) expression levels were significantly correlated with an early pathological stage (COL6A6: p=0.003 and RELN: p<0.001). Multivariate analysis revealed that high HMMR and SDC1 expression levels were significantly correlated with poor overall survival (OS; HMMR: adjusted hazard ratio [aHR] 1.93, 95% confidence interval [CI]=1.10-3.41, p=0.023; SDC1: [aHR] 2.47, 95%CI=1.28-4.77, p=0.007) for breast cancer. Combined, the effects of HMMR and SDC1 showed a significant correlation with poor OS for patients with breast cancer (high expression for both HMMR and SDC1: [aHR] 3.29, 95%CI=1.52-7.12, p=0.003)., Conclusion: These findings suggest that HMMR and SDC1 involved in the ECM-receptor interaction signaling pathway could act as effective independent prognostic biomarkers for breast ductal carcinoma., (Copyright© 2018, International Institute of Anticancer Research (Dr. George J. Delinasios), All rights reserved.)

Background/aim: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-protein-coding RNAs, that can be generated from the 5p or 3p arm of precursor miRNA (pre-miRNA). Differential miRNA arm selection has been reported between tumor and normal tissue in many cancer types; however, the biological function and mechanism of miRNA arm switching in gastric cancer remain unclear., Materials and Methods: Profiles of miRNA expression in gastric cancer were obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). The biological role of miR-193a-5p/-3p in tumor growth and invasive abilities was assessed through a gain-of-function approach. Target genes of miR-193a-3p were identified using bioinformatics and an experimental approach., Results: The expression levels of miR-193a-5p, and not of miR-193a-3p, were significantly decreased in gastric cancer compared to adjacent normal tissues. Ectopic expressions of miR-193a-5p and miR-193a-3p revealed that they both inhibited gastric cancer cell growth, but only miR-193a-3p significantly suppressed cell invasion ability. Using a bioinformatics approach, we identified 18 putative target genes of miR-193a-3p. Both mRNA and protein levels of cyclin D1 (CCND1) and ETS proto-oncogene 1 (ETS1) were significantly decreased in AGS cells transfected with miR-193a-3p mimics. ETS1 or CCND1 knockdown significantly suppressed gastric cancer cell growth, similar to miR-193a-3p overexpression., Conclusion: Our results indicated that miR-193a-3p suppressed gastric growth and motility, at least partly, by directly targeting CCND1 and ETS1 expression., (Copyright© 2018, International Institute of Anticancer Research (Dr. George J. Delinasios), All rights reserved.)

Dysfunctional microRNAs (miRNAs) play a crucial role in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) progression. In the present study, we performed next-generation sequencing for miRNA profiling of the OSCC tissues and corresponding adjacent normal tissues in two patients with OSCC. We observed that 45 miRNAs were substantially up-regulated and 17 miRNAs were down-regulated in OSCC tissues. Since information on the biological role of miR-21-3p (passenger strand) in OSCC is limited, the expression levels of miR-21-3p were further evaluated in 95 OSCC tissue samples by a stem-loop real-time polymerase chain reaction. Our results revealed that miR-21-3p is significantly overexpressed in the OSCC tissues compared with the corresponding adjacent normal tissues (p<0.001). High miR-21-3p expression levels were significantly correlated with N classification (p=0.042). After transfection with a miR-21-3p inhibitor (antagomir), the invasive ability of the OSCC cells was significantly abrogated. Altogether, our findings indicated that miR-21-3p plays a crucial oncogenic role in cell metastasis during OSCC progression., (Copyright© 2017, International Institute of Anticancer Research (Dr. George J. Delinasios), All rights reserved.)

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs that have crucial regulatory functions in carcinogenesis. miR-324-5p and miR-324-3p are generated from the same hairpin RNA structure, however, both are diverse in their direct target genes and expression levels. We report that expression of miR-324-5p and -3p was frequently observed to be either up-regulated or down-regulated, and the selection preference of miR-324 for 5p and 3p arms significantly varied in various types or human cancer. Overexpression of miR-324-5p or -3p suppressed growth and invasion of breast cancer cells. Overexpression of miR-324-5p reduced the growth and invasive abilities of colorectal cancer cells, whereas miR-324-3p suppressed colorectal cancer cell invasion but did not influence cell growth. We conclude that miR-324-5p and miR-324-3p might have distinct biological functions, further complicating the regulatory network in human cancer. Therefore, the arm selection preference of miR-324 may be a method for modulating its function., (Copyright© 2016 International Institute of Anticancer Research (Dr. John G. Delinassios), All rights reserved.)

The isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH) family of enzymes comprises of the key functional metabolic enzymes in the Krebs cycle that catalyze the conversion of isocitrate to α-ketoglutarate (α-KG). α-KG acts as a cofactor in the conversion of 5-methylcytosine (5mC) to 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC). However, the relationship between 5hmC and IDH in gastric cancer remains unclear. Our study revealed that the 5hmC level was substantially lower and 5mC level was slightly higher in gastric cancer tissues; however, 5-formylcytosine (5fC) and 5-carboxylcytosine (5caC) levels did not change significantly in these tissues. We further examined the expression levels of IDH1 and IDH2 in gastric cancer tissues and observed that IDH2 levels were significantly lower in gastric cancer tissues than in the adjacent normal tissues. The ectopic expression of IDH2 can increase 5hmC levels in gastric cancer cells. In conclusion, our results suggested that IDH2 dysfunction is involved in 5hmC depletion during gastric cancer progression., (Copyright© 2016 International Institute of Anticancer Research (Dr. John G. Delinassios), All rights reserved.)