ijms-logo

Journal Browser

Journal Browser

MicroRNA as Biomarkers in Cancer Diagnostics and Therapeutics (III)

A special issue of International Journal of Molecular Sciences (ISSN 1422-0067). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Oncology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2022) | Viewed by 7885

Special Issue Editor

1. Department of Radiology, Michigan State University, Interdisciplinary Science and Technology Building, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA
2. Precision Health Program, Michigan State University, Interdisciplinary Science and Technology Building, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA
Interests: tissue slide-based microRNA diagnostics; microRNA biology and evolution; cell type-specific activities of microRNAs in oncology with a focus on breast and pancreatic cancer; nanoparticle-based delivery of microRNA activity modulators
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNA molecules that function predominantly as post-transcriptional regulators of gene expression. miRNAs play important roles in development, cellular differentiation and homeostasis, and host–virus interactions. miRNA expression and function are dysregulated in cancer. Specific miRNAs have been shown to exert tumor-promoting or tumor-suppressive functions depending of the expressing cell type and cancer site. Within cancer cells, miRNA can modulate growth and chemoresistance, stem cell, epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition and/or metastatic programs. Within other cell types of the tumor microenvironment, miRNAs can promote angiogenic and immune suppressive programs.

Most miRNAs act in a cell-autonomous fashion within the expressing cell, yet miRNAs are an important cargo in extracellular vesicles that can affect specific biological programs or pathways in recipient cells. There are several examples of miRNA-mediated cell-to-cell communication that impart a favorable microenvironment for cancer cell growth and metastasis. Circulating miRNAs either in extracellular vesicles, multi-protein complexes, or in other forms are readily found and often altered in the blood and other bio-fluids of cancer patients.

This Special Issue will provide a comprehensive update on the latest findings on cancer-associated miRNAs, with a focus on the clinical application of miRNAs as biomarkers for cancer diagnosis and prognosis, and treatment prediction, as well as miRNA-based therapeutic strategies.

Original papers and review articles that describe advances in detection methodology, bioinformatics approaches, and statistical analysis with an impact on the clinical application of miRNAs as cancer biomarkers are welcome.

Dr. Lorenzo F. Sempere
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Molecular Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. There is an Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal. For details about the APC please see here. Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • microRNA (miRNA, miR)
  • tissue analysis
  • circulating biomarkers (blood, bio-fluids)
  • extracellular vesicle, exosomes
  • cancer diagnosis
  • treatment prediction
  • therapeutics

Published Papers (3 papers)

Order results
Result details
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

Jump to: Review

17 pages, 914 KiB  
Article
Circulating miRNA Expression Profiles and Machine Learning Models in Association with Response to Irinotecan-Based Treatment in Metastatic Colorectal Cancer
by Evangelia Pliakou, Dimitra Ioanna Lampropoulou, Nikolas Dovrolis, Dimosthenis Chrysikos, Dimitrios Filippou, Christos Papadimitriou, Antonios Vezakis, Gerasimos Aravantinos and Maria Gazouli
Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2023, 24(1), 46; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ijms24010046 - 20 Dec 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2143
Abstract
Colorectal cancer represents a leading cause of cancer-related morbidity and mortality. Despite improvements, chemotherapy remains the backbone of colorectal cancer treatment. The aim of this study is to investigate the variation of circulating microRNA expression profiles and the response to irinotecan-based treatment in [...] Read more.
Colorectal cancer represents a leading cause of cancer-related morbidity and mortality. Despite improvements, chemotherapy remains the backbone of colorectal cancer treatment. The aim of this study is to investigate the variation of circulating microRNA expression profiles and the response to irinotecan-based treatment in metastatic colorectal cancer and to identify relevant target genes and molecular functions. Serum samples from 95 metastatic colorectal cancer patients were analyzed. The microRNA expression was tested with a NucleoSpin miRNA kit (Machnery-Nagel, Germany), and a machine learning approach was subsequently applied for microRNA profiling. The top 10 upregulated microRNAs in the non-responders group were hsa-miR-181b-5p, hsa-miR-10b-5p, hsa-let-7f-5p, hsa-miR-181a-5p, hsa-miR-181d-5p, hsa-miR-301a-3p, hsa-miR-92a-3p, hsa-miR-155-5p, hsa-miR-30c-5p, and hsa-let-7i-5p. Similarly, the top 10 downregulated microRNAs were hsa-let-7d-5p, hsa-let-7c-5p, hsa-miR-215-5p, hsa-miR-143-3p, hsa-let-7a-5p, hsa-miR-10a-5p, hsa-miR-142-5p, hsa-miR-148a-3p, hsa-miR-122-5p, and hsa-miR-17-5p. The upregulation of microRNAs in the miR-181 family and the downregulation of those in the let-7 family appear to be mostly involved with non-responsiveness to irinotecan-based treatment. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue MicroRNA as Biomarkers in Cancer Diagnostics and Therapeutics (III))
Show Figures

Figure 1

14 pages, 4210 KiB  
Article
Tumor-Specific miRNA Signatures in Combination with CA19-9 for Liquid Biopsy-Based Detection of PDAC
by Min Woo Kim, Hani Koh, Jee Ye Kim, Suji Lee, Hyojung Lee, Young Kim, Ho Kyoung Hwang and Seung Il Kim
Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2021, 22(24), 13621; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ijms222413621 - 19 Dec 2021
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2948
Abstract
Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is considered one of the most aggressive malignancies and has high mortality and poor survival rates. Therefore, there is an urgent need to discover non-invasive biomarkers for early detection before PDAC reaches the incurable stage. We hypothesized that liquid [...] Read more.
Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is considered one of the most aggressive malignancies and has high mortality and poor survival rates. Therefore, there is an urgent need to discover non-invasive biomarkers for early detection before PDAC reaches the incurable stage. We hypothesized that liquid biopsy of PDAC-derived extracellular vesicles (PDEs) containing abundant microRNAs (miRNAs) could be used for early diagnosis of PDAC because they can be selectively enriched and because they are biologically stable. We isolated PDEs by immunocapture using magnetic beads, and we identified 13 miRNA candidates in 20 pancreatic cancer patients and 20 normal controls. We found that expression of five miRNAs, including miR-10b, miR-16, miR-155, miR-429, and miR-1290, was markedly higher in PDEs. Furthermore, the miRNA signatures along with serum carbohydrate antigen 19-9 (CA19-9) were optimized by logistic regression, and the miRNA signature and CA19-9 combination markers (CMs) were effective at differentiating PDAC patients from normal controls. As a result, the CMs represented a high sensitivity (AUC, 0.964; sensitivity, 100%; specificity, 80%) and a high specificity (AUC, 0.962; sensitivity, 85.71%; specificity, 100%). These findings suggest that five miRNAs expressed in PDEs and CA19-9 are valuable biomarkers for screening and diagnosis of pancreatic cancer by liquid biopsy. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue MicroRNA as Biomarkers in Cancer Diagnostics and Therapeutics (III))
Show Figures

Figure 1

Review

Jump to: Research

17 pages, 14580 KiB  
Review
Interactions between miRNAs and Double-Strand Breaks DNA Repair Genes, Pursuing a Fine-Tuning of Repair
by Ricardo I. Peraza-Vega, Mahara Valverde and Emilio Rojas
Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2022, 23(6), 3231; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ijms23063231 - 17 Mar 2022
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2070
Abstract
The repair of DNA damage is a crucial process for the correct maintenance of genetic information, thus, allowing the proper functioning of cells. Among the different types of lesions occurring in DNA, double-strand breaks (DSBs) are considered the most harmful type of lesion, [...] Read more.
The repair of DNA damage is a crucial process for the correct maintenance of genetic information, thus, allowing the proper functioning of cells. Among the different types of lesions occurring in DNA, double-strand breaks (DSBs) are considered the most harmful type of lesion, which can result in significant loss of genetic information, leading to diseases, such as cancer. DSB repair occurs through two main mechanisms, called non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) and homologous recombination repair (HRR). There is evidence showing that miRNAs play an important role in the regulation of genes acting in NHEJ and HRR mechanisms, either through direct complementary binding to mRNA targets, thus, repressing translation, or by targeting other genes involved in the transcription and activity of DSB repair genes. Therefore, alteration of miRNA expression has an impact on the ability of cells to repair DSBs, which, in turn, affects cancer therapy sensitivity. This latter gives account of the importance of miRNAs as regulators of NHEJ and HRR and places them as a promising target to improve cancer therapy. Here, we review recent reports demonstrating an association between miRNAs and genes involved in NHEJ and HRR. We employed the Web of Science search query TS (“gene official symbol/gene aliases*” AND “miRNA/microRNA/miR-”) and focused on articles published in the last decade, between 2010 and 2021. We also performed a data analysis to represent miRNA–mRNA validated interactions from TarBase v.8, in order to offer an updated overview about the role of miRNAs as regulators of DSB repair. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue MicroRNA as Biomarkers in Cancer Diagnostics and Therapeutics (III))
Show Figures

Figure 1

Back to TopTop