Rai Ravi Prakash, Syed Asad, Elgorban Abdallah M, Abid Islem, Wong Ling Shing, Khan Mohd Sajid, Khatoon Jahanarah, Prasad Kashi N, Ghoshal Uday Chand
Department of Microbiology, Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow, India.
Department of Botany and Microbiology, College of Science, King Saud University, P.O. Box 2455, Riyadh, 11451, Saudi Arabia.
Microb Pathog. 2025 May;202:107442. doi: 10.1016/j.micpath.2025.107442. Epub 2025 Mar 4.
Helicobacter pylori infection and the resulting inflammation of the stomach are widely recognized as the primary risk factors for the development of gastric cancer (human health). Despite numerous attempts, the correlation between various virulence factors of H. pylori and stomach cancer remains mainly unexplained. The cag pathogenicity island (cagPAI) is a widely recognized indicator of virulence in H. pylori. MicroRNAs play crucial roles in a wide range of biological and pathological processes and dysregulated expressions of miRNAs have been detected in numerous cancer types. However, research on the correlation between H. pylori infection and its cagPAI, as well as the differential expression of microRNAs in gastric cancer, is lacking.
The aim of this study was to examine the differential expression of miRNAs in 80 patients with gastric cancer, specifically in connection to the presence of H. pylori and its cag pathogenicity island (cagPAI).
Biopsies of 80 gastric cancer patients were collected and used for H. pylori DNA isolation and tissue miRNA isolation, and further analyzed for cagPAI and miRNA expression and their association.
Elevated levels of miR-21, miR-155, and miR-223 were detected in malignant tissues. The expression of miR-21 and miR-223 was considerably elevated in biopsies that tested positive for H. pylori, whereas the expression of miR-34a was reduced. H. pylori cagPAI samples that are functionally intact exhibit greater expression of miR-21 and miR-223 compared to cagPAI samples that are partially deleted, in both normal and malignant tissues.
Thus, the novelty of our study lies in its focus on the differential expression of specific miRNAs in relation to the functional integrity of the cagPAI in H. pylori-infected gastric cancer patients, offering a more detailed understanding of the interplay between H. pylori virulence factors and miRNA regulation than previous studies.
幽门螺杆菌感染及由此引发的胃部炎症被广泛认为是胃癌（人类健康）发生的主要危险因素。尽管进行了大量尝试，但幽门螺杆菌的各种毒力因子与胃癌之间的相关性仍主要未得到解释。cag致病岛（cagPAI）是幽门螺杆菌中广泛认可的毒力指标。微小RNA在广泛的生物学和病理过程中发挥关键作用，并且在多种癌症类型中都检测到了微小RNA的表达失调。然而，缺乏关于幽门螺杆菌感染与其cagPAI之间的相关性以及胃癌中微小RNA差异表达的研究。
本研究的目的是检测80例胃癌患者中微小RNA的差异表达，特别是与幽门螺杆菌及其cag致病岛（cagPAI）的存在相关的差异表达。
收集80例胃癌患者的活检组织，用于分离幽门螺杆菌DNA和组织微小RNA，并进一步分析cagPAI和微小RNA的表达及其相关性。
在恶性组织中检测到miR-21、miR-155和miR-223水平升高。在幽门螺杆菌检测呈阳性的活检组织中，miR-21和miR-223的表达显著升高，而miR-34a的表达降低。在正常组织和恶性组织中，功能完整的幽门螺杆菌cagPAI样本与部分缺失的cagPAI样本相比，miR-21和miR-223的表达更高。
因此，我们研究的新颖之处在于关注幽门螺杆菌感染的胃癌患者中特定微小RNA的差异表达与cagPAI功能完整性的关系，比以往研究更详细地了解了幽门螺杆菌毒力因子与微小RNA调控之间的相互作用。
