Project description:Lung cancer (LC) is one of the major cancers, with survival of patients dictated by the time of diagnosis. Cell-free circulating miRNAs have been proposed as candidate biomarkers for non-small cell lung cancer. The goal of this study was to profile the miRNAs in blood plasma of lung cancer patients diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma (SCC, n=14) or adenocarcinoma (AD, n=6), and healthy individuals (HD) using miRCURY LNA miRNA qPCR Serum/Plasma Panel (Exiqon). Average Cq of detected assays was used for normalization of miRNA expression.
Project description:Exosomes play important roles in intercellular communication through the delivery of their cargoes, which include proteins, lipids, and RNAs. Increasingly, multiple studies have reported the association between exosomal small non-coding RNAs and cancer, due to their regulatory functions in gene expression. Hence, analysis of the features of small non-coding RNA expression and their incorporation into exosomes is important for cancer research. Here, we performed deep sequencing to investigate the expression of small RNAs in plasma exosomes from lung adenocarcinoma patients, lung squamous cell carcinoma patients, and healthy controls. We found that 5’ YRNA hY4-derived fragments are significantly upregulated in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) exosomes, and may serve as a novel class of circulating biomarkers for NSCLC diagnosis. We also identified that the RNY4P7 gene on chromosome 2 may not be a pseudogene, because the corresponding transcript hY4 reverse fragment was detected in exosomes and cells. Further, we demonstrated that a panel of small RNAs, including miR-451a and miR-122-5p, may be selectively sorted into NSCLC exosomes. Overall, our studies have indicated a wider range of biological effects in NSCLC that may be mediated by exosomal small RNAs than previously known.
Project description:Plasma samples from 100 early stage (I to IIIA) non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients and 100 non-cancer controls were screened for 754 circulating microRNAs via qRT-PCR, using TaqMan MicroRNA Arrays. Our objective was to identify a panel of circulating microRNAs in plasma that will contribute to early detection of lung cancer.
Project description:microRNAs are small, non-coding, single-stranded RNAs between 18-22 nucleotides long that regulate gene expression. Expression of microRNAs is altered in tumor compared to normal tissue; there is some evidence that these changes may be reflected in the serum of cancer cases compared to healthy individuals. Several case-control studies have found evidence of differential levels of serum miRNAs in early stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients but with little consensus on specific miRNAs. Similarly, it is unclear whether miRNAs that show differential levels in tumors are the same miRNAs that are found in serum, and whether surgical resection of tumors leads to normalization of serum miRNA levels in cases. We used Affymetrix arrays to examine serum miRNA expression profiles in a small series of surgically resected non-small cell lung cancer cases to investigate circulating levels of miRNAs.
Project description:Gene expression of samples derived from normal lung and patients with small cell lung cancer (SCLC) or non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC)
Project description:Early detection of small cell lung cancer crucially demands highly reliable markers. Growing evidence suggests that extracellular vesicles carry tumor cell-specific cargo suitable as protein markers in cancer. Therefore, we isolated plasma-derived exosomes from newly diagnosed small cell lung cancer patients and investigated proteome dynamics of these exosomes aiming at improving the detection of small cell lung cancer. A total of 1,016 proteins were initially identified. After data processing and statistical analysis, several proteins were found to be differentially expressed in comparing small cell lung cancer patients and healthy individuals, indicating that circulating exosomes may encompass specific proteins with potential diagnostic attributes for small cell lung cancer. Furthermore, our data may indicate a novel tumor-suppressing role of blood coagulation and involvement of complement activation in small cell lung cancer pathogenesis.