The epigenetic effect of microRNA in BCR-ABL1‑positive microvesicles during the transformation of normal hematopoietic transplants.

Epigenetics have been demonstrated to play a pivotal role in the progression of multiple cancers. Our previous study has demonstrated that microvesicles (MVs) derived from K562 cells could malignantly transform normal hematopoietic cells. The aim of this section was to elucidate the epigenetic effects of RNA in K562-MVs. We altered some epigenetic RNAs (miR-106a-5p, miR-106b-5p and lincPOU3F3) in K562-MVs and followed the process of transformation. Global DNA methylation and DNA methyltransferase (DNMT) levels were observed respectively. Our findings revealed that increased miR-106a/b in K562-MVs accelerated the transformation process (8.33±0.94 vs. 13.29±1.28 days; P<0.01) whereas decreased lincPOU3F3 delayed the transformation (17.83±0.29 days; P<0.05). The targets of miR-106a/b and lincPOU3F3 in the recipient cells were DNMT3a and DNMT3b. We found that lincPOU3F3 directly increased the DNMT3a/b while miR-106a/b only in part by targeting RB. However, global DNA methylation and special gene methylation was altered due to the concurrent regulation of DNMT3a and DNMT3b. Consequently, we demonstrated that tumor-derived MVs represent a notable intercellular epigenetic communication between cancer cells and recipient cells.