No abstract

Recent epidemiological studies revealed a significant association between oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) and Porphyromonas gingivalis, a major pathogen of periodontal disease. As a keystone pathogen of periodontitis, P. gingivalis is known not only to damage local periodontal tissues, but also to evade the host immune system and eventually affect systemic health. However, its role in OSCC has yet to be defined. To explore the underlying effect of chronic P. gingivalis infection on OSCC and to identify relevant biomarkers as promising targets for therapy and prevention, we established a novel model by exposing human immortalized oral epithelial cells (HIOECs) to P. gingivalis at a low multiplicity of infection (MOI) for 5–23 weeks. The P. gingivalis infected HIOECs were monitored for tumor biological alteration by proliferation, wound healing, transwell invasion, and gelatin zymography assays. Microarray and proteomic analyses were performed on HIOECs infected with P. gingivalis for 15 weeks, and some selected data were validated by quantitative real-time PCR and (or) western blot on cells infected for 15 and 23 weeks. Persistent exposure to P. gingivalis caused cell morphological changes, increased proliferation ability with higher S phase fraction in the cell cycle, and promoted cell migratory and invasive properties. In combining results of bioinformatics analyses and validation assays, tumor-related genes such as NNMT, FLI1, GAS6, lncRNA CCAT1, PDCD1LG2, and CD274 may be considered as the key regulators in tumor-like transformation in response to long-time exposure of P. gingivalis. In addition, some useful clinical biomarkers and novel proteins were also presented. In conclusion, P. gingivalis could promote tumorigenic properties of HIOECs, indicating that chronic P. gingivalis infection may be considered as a potential risk factor for oral cancer. The key regulators detected from the present model might be used in monitoring the development of OSCC with chronic periodontal infection.

Cancer cells usually adapt metabolic phenotypes to chemotherapeutics.Adefensive strategy against this flexibility is to modulate signaling pathwaysr elevant to cancer bioenergetics.Atriphenylphosphonium-modified terpyridine platinum(II) complex (TTP) was designed to inhibit thioredoxin reductase (TrxR) and multiple metabolisms of cancer cells. TTP exhibited enhanced cytotoxicity against cisplatin-insensitive human ovarian cancer cells in ac aspase-3-independent manner and showed preferential inhibition to mitochondrial TrxR. The morphology and function of mitochondria were severely damaged, and the levels of mitochondrial and cellular reactive oxygen species were decreased. As ar esult, TTP exerted strong inhibition to both mitochondrial and glycolytic bioenergetics,t hus inducing cancer cells to enter ah ypometabolic state.

In summary, lncRNA UCA1 was an independent prognostic biomarker of disease-free survival in gastric cancer patients and acted as an oncogene to regulate the malignant proliferation and resistance to adriamycin in gastric cancer cells. UCA1 might provide a new potential therapeutic target and stratagem for gastric cancer.

In summary, lncRNA GAS5 was a prognostic biomarker of disease free survival in BTCC patients, and acted as a tumor-suppressing gene to inhibit malignant proliferation and resistance to doxorubicin in BTCC cells. LncRNA GAS5 might be a novel potential therapeutic target for BTCC.

Abstract. Transitional cell carcinoma (TCC) is one of the most common types of malignancies and a leading cause of genitourinary system cancer mortality worldwide. The tumor suppressor gene FOXO1, a member of the forkhead box O (FOXO) subfamily of transcription factors, is downregulated in a number of cancers, including TCC; however, the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. In the present study, we used microRNA (miRNA) target prediction algorithms to identify a conserved potential miR-96 binding site in the 3'-untranslated region (3'-UTR) of FOXO1. Using quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) and northern blot analysis, we identified that miR-96 was downregulated in TCC tissues compared to normal bladder tissues (NB), suggesting that the loss of FOXO1 expression in TCC may be mediated by miR-96. To confirm this, we transfected pre-miR-96/anti-miR-96 into the T24 TCC cell line and revealed that miR-96 expression was sufficient to significantly reduce FOXO1 expression. Conversely, FOXO1 expression was not completely restored by the inhibition of miR-96 in T24 cells. Moreover, RNA silencing of FOXO1 significantly reduced miR-96 inhibitor-mediated T24 cell apoptosis. In conclusion, our study demonstrates that the miR-96 targeting of FOXO1 is upregulated in TCC; in addition, TCC tumorigenesis may be partly due to the ability of miR-96 to promote FOXO1 repression, thereby bypassing cell apoptosis controls.

No abstract

Tumour suppressor candidate 7 (TUSC7) is a novel tumor suppressor gene generating long non-coding RNA (lncRNAs) in several types of human cancers. The expression and function of TUSC7 in human brain glioma has yet to be elucidated. In this study, TUSC7 was poorly expressed in tissues and cell lines of glioma, and the lower expression was correlated with glioma of the worse histological grade. Moreover, TUSC7 is a prognostic biomarker of glioma patients. Up-regulation of TUSC7 suppressed cellular proliferation and invasion of glioma cells, and accelerated cellular apoptosis. Bioinformatics analysis showed that TUSC7 specifically binds to miR-23b. MiR-23b was up-regulated in glioma and negatively correlated with the expression of TUSC7. The miR-23b expression was inhibited remarkably by the upregulation of TUSC7 and the reciprocal inhibition was determined between TUSC7 and miR-23b.RNA pull-down and luciferase reporter assays were used to validate the sequence-specific correlation between miR-23b and TUSC7. TUSC7 inhibited the proliferation, migration and invasion of glioma cells and promoted cellular apoptosis largely bypassing miR-23b. We conclude that the lncRNA TUSC7 acted as a tumor suppressor gene negatively regulated by miR-23b, suggesting a novel therapeutic strategy against gliomas.