Department of Thoracic Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University, No 23 You-zheng Street, Nan-gang District, Harbin 150001, Heilongjiang Province, People's Republic of China.
Med Oncol. 2012 Sep;29(3):1673-80. doi: 10.1007/s12032-011-0083-x. Epub 2011 Nov 4.
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in the world. Brain metastasis (BM) can affect about 25% of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients during their lifetime. Efforts to characterize patients that will develop BM have been disappointing. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play a role in regulating a variety of targets and, consequently, multiple pathways, which make them a powerful tool for early detection of disease, risk assessment and prognosis. In this study, using RT-PCR and further northern blot validation, we confirmed that miR-378 was significantly differentially expressed in the matched NSCLC from 8 patients with BM and 21 without BM. Our study showed evidences that miR-378 is associated with non-small cell lung cancer brain metastasis by promoting cell migration, invasion and tumor angiogenesis. MiR-378 may be a potential biomarker for characterizing non-small cell lung cancer brain metastasis and assisting clinicians in stratifying the high-risk patients on a clinical trial for either prophylactic cranial irradiation or a new intervention that may mitigate BM development, ultimately leading to a new standard of care for NSCLC patients.
肺癌是全球癌症死亡的主要原因。脑转移（BM）可影响约 25%的非小细胞肺癌（NSCLC）患者的一生。人们一直努力对可能发生 BM 的患者进行特征描述，但结果令人失望。MicroRNAs（miRNAs）在调节多种靶标方面发挥作用，进而调控多种途径，这使它们成为疾病早期检测、风险评估和预后的有力工具。在这项研究中，我们使用 RT-PCR 并进一步通过 northern blot 验证，证实 miR-378 在来自 8 名 BM 患者和 21 名无 BM 患者的配对 NSCLC 中表达显著差异。我们的研究表明，miR-378 通过促进细胞迁移、侵袭和肿瘤血管生成与非小细胞肺癌脑转移相关。miR-378 可能是一种潜在的生物标志物，用于描述非小细胞肺癌脑转移，并帮助临床医生对临床试验中的高危患者进行分层，以进行预防性颅脑照射或新的干预措施，从而减轻 BM 的发展，最终为 NSCLC 患者提供新的治疗标准。
