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Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are a type of noncoding RNA, which play a vital role in the occurrence and development of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). While the role of novel circADAMTS6 in ESCC remains unknown. We assessed circADAMTS6 expression in ESCC tissues and cells, and the relationship between circADAMTS6 expression and overall survival of ESCC patients. Functional experiments in vitro and xenograft in vivo assay were applied to explore the functions and mechanisms of circADAMTS6 in ESCC. Results found that up-regulation of circADAMTS6 was associated with poor overall survival and may acted as an independent risk factor for ESCC prognosis. Knockdown of circADAMTS6 significantly inhibited the proliferation, migration and invasion of ESCC cells and growth of xenograft tumors in vivo. Induced AGR2 expression was able to rescue the loss of function induced by si-circADAMTS6 in KYSE150 cell. CircADAMTS6 may acts as oncogene by activating AGR2 and the Hippo signaling pathway coactivator YAP in ESCC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of organic anion transporting polypeptide 1B3 (SLCO1B3) in breast cancer is still controversial. The clinical immunohistochemical results showed that a greater proportion of patients with negative lymph nodes, AJCC stage I, and histological grade 1 (P < 0.05) was positively correlated with stronger expression of SLCO1B3, and DFS and OS were also increased significantly in these patients (P = 0.041, P = 0.001). Further subgroup analysis showed that DFS and OS were significantly enhanced with the increased expression of SLCO1B3 in the ER positive subgroup. The cellular function assay showed that the ability of cell proliferation, migration and invasion was significantly enhanced after knockdown of SLCO1B3 expression in breast cancer cell lines. In contrast, the ability of cell proliferation, migration and invasion was significantly reduced after overexpress the SLCO1B3 in breast cancer cell lines (P < 0.05). Overexpression or knockdown of SLCO1B3 had no effect on the apoptotic ability of breast cancer cells. High level of SLCO1B3 expression can inhibit the proliferation, invasion and migration of breast cancer cells, leading to better prognosis of patients. The role of SLCO1B3 in breast cancer may be related to estrogen. SLCO1B3 will become a potential biomarker for breast cancer diagnosis and prognosis assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accumulating evidences indicated that some microRNAs (miRNAs) play a critical role during the carcinogenesis. In the present study, we found that miR-124 is down-regulated in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) tissues. Three miR-124 encoding genes, including mir-124-1, mir-124-2, and mir-124-3, harboring CpG islands undergo methylation-mediated miR-124 inactivation in ESCC tissues. The methylation status of all these three genes was negatively associated with the expression of miR-124. The low expression of miR-124 and the hypermethylation of mir-124-1 and mir-124-3 were associated with the clinico-pathological parameters indicating the poor prognosis. In addition, promoter methylation of all three genes plus low expression of miR-124 was the independent poor prognostic marker for ESCC patients. In conclusion, miR-124 may function as a tumor suppressive miRNA, and hypermethylation-mediated inactivation of miR-124 may be useful for a poor prognostic marker for ESCC patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gastric cancer is the fourth most common malignancy in the world. Although microRNA-200 (miR-200) family members are thought to play roles in tumorigenesis, their functions in carcinogenesis are tumor specific, and the underlying mechanism of action still remains elusive. Few studies to date have addressed the dysregulation and function of miR-200 family members in gastric cancer progression. Here, we report that the miR-200 family members, miR-200c and miR-141, were significantly downregulated in gastric cancer specimens and gastric cancer cell lines. Importantly, on clinical samples, the expression of miR-200c and miR-141 was inversely correlated with TNM stage, tumor invasion depth (T), tumor embolus and disease-free survival. Wound-healing assay results showed that co-transfected miR-200c/141 could inhibit the migration and invasion capability of the gastric cell line SGC-7901. We also found that miR-200c and miR-141 directly targeted zinc finger E-box-binding homeobox 1/2 (ZEB1/2) and upregulated E-cadherin expression. In specimens from gastric cancer patients, reduced expression of miR-200c/141 was associated with increased expression of ZEB1 and/or ZEB2. In addition, the downregulation of miR-200c and miR-141 was found to be due to a highly methylated CpG island located upstream of their genomic sequence and/or upregulated TGF-β signaling. Treatment with the chemotherapeutic agent decitabine, a known DNA methyltransferase inhibitor, increased miR-200c/141 expression and ameliorated decreased expression of miR-200c/141 induced by TGF-β in SGC-7901 cells. Our study revealed that miR-200c/141 was downregulated by CpG island methylation and TGF-β signaling, which decreased ZEB1/2 expression and increased E-cadherin expression to inhibit migration and invasion of gastric cancer cells and provides powerful evidence for the application of decitabine in gastric cancer treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The LIM-only subclass of LIM proteins is a family of nuclear transcription co-regulators that are characterized by the exclusive presence of two tandem LIM domains and no other functional domains. To date, four LIM-domain-only (LMO) proteins (LMO1-LMO4) have been identified. They regulate gene transcription by functioning as 'linker' or 'scaffolding' proteins with a remarkable potential to mediate protein-protein interactions. These proteins play important roles in cell fate determination, cell growth and differentiation, tissues patterning, and organ development. In this review, we briefly described the functions of LMO proteins in the organ development and diseases. We also summarized the interaction proteins of each LMO family member, which may contribute to elucidating the functions of these mysterious and important linker proteins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Melanoma-associated antigens-A (MAGE-A) family is a group of well-characterized cancer/testis antigens (CTA), because they are strictly tumor specific and are shared by many kinds of tumors. However, the expression pattern of MAGE-A10 and MAGE-A11 in breast cancer patients is still unclear. The purpose of our study is to investigate the expression pattern and prognostic significance of MAGE-A10 and MAGE-A11 in breast cancer patients. Methods: Formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded tissues and the clinicopathological parameters from 75 primary breast cancer patients were collected. The expressions of MAGE-A10 and MAGE-A11 proteins were immunohistochemically detected, and the association of MAGE-A10 and MAGE-A11 expressions with the clinicopathological parameters and the survival of breast cancer patients were analyzed. Results: The expression rates of MAGE-A10 and MAGE-A11 in breast cancer specimens were 73.3 and 52.0%, respectively. MAGE-A11 expression was more frequent in estrogen-receptor (ER)-positive breast carcinomas compared with ER-negative breast carcinomas ( P = 0.004). MAGE-A11 expression was positively associated with HER-2 expression ( P = 0.003). Overall survival of patients with MAGE-A11-negative expression was significantly longer than those patients with positive MAGE-A11 expression ( P = 0.030), but no difference of overall survival was found between patients with MAGE-A10-negative and -positive expression ( P = 0.881). Conclusions: MAGE-A10 and MAGE-A11 are tumor-specific antigens, and MAGE-A11 expression probably is a potential poor prognostic factor for breast cancer patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]