We investigated expression profiles of microRNA (miRNA) in gastric carcinomas by use of a miRNA microarray platform covering a total of 470 human miRNAs. We identified 39 differentially expressed miRNAs in gastric carcinoma, of which six were significantly downregulated and the other 33 were upregulated. We found that miRNA-375 (miR-375) was the most downregulated and that its ectopic expression in gastric carcinoma cells markedly reduced cell viability via the caspase-mediated apoptosis pathway. Interestingly, we found that expression of miR-375 inhibited expression of PDK1, which is a direct target of miR-375, followed by suppression of Akt phosphorylation. Further analysis by gene expression microarray revealed that 14-3-3zeta, a potent antiapoptotic gene, was significantly downregulated at both the mRNA and protein levels in cells transfected with miR-375. The activity of a luciferase reporter containing the miR-375 binding sequence at the 3' untranslated region (UTR) of 14-3-3zeta mRNA was repressed by the ectopic expression of miR-375, suggesting that miR-375 targets the 3' UTR of 14-3-3zeta. In addition, knockdown of either PDK1 or 14-3-3zeta in gastric carcinoma cells induced caspase activation, which was also observed in miR-375-transfected cells, suggesting that miR-375 may exert its proapoptotic function, at least in part, through the downregulation of PDK1 and 14-3-3zeta. Taken together, we propose that miR-375 is a candidate tumor suppressor miRNA in gastric carcinoma.

We investigated expression profiles of microRNA (miRNA) in renal cell carcinoma [clear cell carcinomas (CCC) and chromophobe renal cell carcinomas (ChCC)] and in normal kidneys by using a miRNA microarray platform which covers a total of 470 human miRNAs (Sanger miRBase release 9.1). Unsupervised hierarchical cluster analysis revealed that CCC and ChCC were separable and that no subgroups were identified in CCCs. We found that 43 miRNAs were differentially expressed between CCC and normal kidney, of which 37 were significantly down-regulated in CCC and the other 6 were up-regulated. We also found that 57 miRNAs were differentially expressed between ChCC and normal kidney, of which 51 were significantly down-regulated in ChCC and the other 6 were up-regulated. Together, these observations indicate that expression of miRNAs tends to be down-regulated in both CCC and ChCC compared with normal kidney. We observed that miR-141 and miR-200c were the most significantly down-regulated miRNAs in CCCs. Indeed, in all cases of CCC analysed, both miR-141 and miR-200c were down-regulated in comparison with normal kidney. Microarray data and quantitative RT-PCR showed that these two miRNAs were expressed concordantly. TargetScan algorithm revealed that ZFHX1B mRNA is a hypothetical target of both miR-141 and -200c. We established by quantitative RT-PCR that, in CCCs in which miR-141 and miR-200c were down-regulated, ZFHX1B, a transcriptional repressor for CDH1/E-cadherin, tended to be up-regulated. Furthermore, we found that overexpression of miR-141 and miR-200c caused down-regulation of ZFHX1B and up-regulation of E-cadherin in two renal carcinoma cell lines, ACHN and 786-O. On the basis of these findings, we suggest that down-regulation of miR-141 and miR-200c in CCCs might be involved in suppression of CDH1/E-cadherin transcription via up-regulation of ZFHX1B.

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Evi9 is a common site of retroviral integration in BXH2 murine myeloid leukemias. Here we show that Evi9 encodes a novel zinc finger protein with three tissue-specific isoforms: Evi9a (773 amino acids [aa]) contains two C 2 H 2 -type zinc finger motifs, a proline-rich region, and an acidic domain; Evi9b (486 aa) lacks the first zinc finger motif and part of the proline-rich region; Evi9c (239 aa) lacks all but the first zinc finger motif. Proviral integration sites are located in the first intron of the gene and lead to increased gene expression. Evi9a and Evi9c, but not Evi9b, show transforming activity for NIH 3T3 cells, suggesting that Evi9 is a dominantly acting proto-oncogene. Immunolocalization studies show that Evi9c is restricted to the cytoplasm whereas Evi9a and Evi9b are located in the nucleus, where they form a speckled localization pattern identical to that observed for BCL6, a human B-cell proto-oncogene product. Coimmunoprecipitation and glutathione S-transferase pulldown experiments show that Evi9a and Evi9b, but not Evi9c, physically interact with BCL6, while deletion mutagenesis localized the interaction domains in or near the second zinc finger and POZ domains of Evi9 and BCL6, respectively. These results suggest that Evi9 is a leukemia disease gene that functions, in part, through its interaction with BCL6.