a Department of Biological Sciences , Purdue University , West Lafayette , IN , USA.
b Stem Cell Program, Boston Children's Hospital , Harvard Medical School , Boston , MA , USA.
Cell Cycle. 2019 Aug;18(15):1798-1811. doi: 10.1080/15384101.2019.1634956. Epub 2019 Jul 1.
Efforts to search for better treatment options for cancer have been a priority, and due to these efforts, new alternative therapies have emerged. For instance, clinically relevant tumor-suppressive microRNAs that target key oncogenic drivers have been identified as potential anti-cancer therapeutics. MicroRNAs are small non-coding RNAs that negatively regulate gene expression at the posttranscriptional level. Aberrant microRNA expression, through misexpression of microRNA target genes, can have profound cellular effects leading to a variety of diseases, including cancer. While altered microRNA expression contributes to a cancerous state, restoration of microRNA expression has therapeutic benefits. For example, ectopic expression of microRNA-34a (miR-34a), a tumor suppressor gene that is a direct transcriptional target of p53 and thus is reduced in p53 mutant tumors, has clear effects on cell proliferation and survival in murine models of cancer. MicroRNA replacement therapies have recently been tested in combination with other agents, including other microRNAs, to simultaneously target multiple pathways to improve the therapeutic response. Thus, we reasoned that other microRNA combinations could collaborate to further improve treatment. To test this hypothesis miR-34a was used in an unbiased cell-based approach to identify combinatorial microRNA pairs with enhanced efficacy over miR-34a alone. This approach identified a subset of microRNAs that was able to enhance the miR-34a antiproliferative activity. These microRNA combinatorial therapeutics could offer superior tumor-suppressive abilities to suppress oncogenic properties compared to a monotherapeutic approach. Collectively these studies aim to address an unmet need of identifying, characterizing, and therapeutically targeting microRNAs for the treatment of cancer.
为癌症寻找更好的治疗方法一直是重中之重,正是由于这些努力,新的替代疗法已经出现。例如,已经确定了具有临床相关性的肿瘤抑制性 microRNA,这些 microRNA 可靶向关键致癌驱动基因,作为潜在的抗癌治疗药物。microRNA 是一种小的非编码 RNA,可在转录后水平负调控基因表达。异常的 microRNA 表达(通过 microRNA 靶基因的错误表达)会对细胞产生深远的影响,导致多种疾病,包括癌症。虽然 microRNA 表达的改变会导致癌症状态,但 microRNA 表达的恢复具有治疗益处。例如,肿瘤抑制基因 microRNA-34a(miR-34a)的异位表达,它是 p53 的直接转录靶标,因此在 p53 突变型肿瘤中减少,对癌症小鼠模型中的细胞增殖和存活有明显影响。microRNA 替代疗法最近已与其他药物联合进行测试,包括其他 microRNA,以同时靶向多个途径来提高治疗反应。因此,我们推断其他 microRNA 组合可以协同作用以进一步改善治疗效果。为了验证这一假设,我们在一项基于细胞的无偏倚方法中使用 miR-34a 来鉴定与单独使用 miR-34a 相比具有增强功效的组合 microRNA 对。这种方法鉴定了一组 microRNA,它们能够增强 miR-34a 的抗增殖活性。与单药治疗方法相比,这些 microRNA 组合治疗药物可能具有更好的肿瘤抑制能力,以抑制致癌特性。总的来说,这些研究旨在满足确定、表征和治疗性靶向 microRNA 以治疗癌症的未满足需求。
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