Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have emerged as new regulators of stem cell pluripotency and tumorigenesis. The SOX2 gene, a master regulator of pluripotency, is embedded within the third intron of a lncRNA known as SOX2 overlapping transcript (SOX2OT). SOX2OT has been suspected to participate in regulation of SOX2 expression and/or other related processes; nevertheless, its potential involvement in tumor initiation and/or progression is unclear. Here, we have evaluated a possible correlation between expression patterns of SOX2OT and those of master regulators of pluripotency, SOX2 and OCT4, in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) tissue samples. We have also examined its potential function in the human embryonic carcinoma stem cell line, NTERA2 (NT2), which highly expresses SOX2OT, SOX2, and OCT4. Our data revealed a significant coupregulation of SOX2OT along with SOX2 and OCT4 in tumor samples, compared to the non-tumor tissues obtained from the margin of same tumors. We also identified two novel splice variants of SOX2OT (SOX2OT-S1 and SOX2OT-S2) which coupregulated with SOX2 and OCT4 in ESCCs. Suppressing SOX2OT variants caused a profound alteration in cell cycle distribution, including a 5.9 and 6.9 time increase in sub-G1 phase of cell cycle for SOX2OT-S1 and SOX2OT-S2, respectively. The expression of all variants was significantly diminished, upon the induction of neural differentiation in NT2 cells, suggesting their potential functional links to the undifferentiated state of the cells. Our data suggest a part for SOX2OT spliced variants in tumor initiation and/or progression as well as regulating pluripotent state of stem cells. STEM CELLS 2014;32:126-134

ObjectiveMiR-21 is an oncomir expressed by malignant cells and/or tumor microenvironment components. In this study we focused on understanding the effects of stromal miR-21 on esophageal malignant cells.DesignMiR-21 expression was evaluated in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded samples from patients with esophageal squamous-cell carcinoma (SCC) by quantitative RT-PCR. MiR-21 tissue distribution was visualized with in situ hybridization. A co-culture system of normal fibroblasts and esophageal cancer cells was used to determine the effects of fibroblasts on miR-21 expression levels, and on SCC cell migration and invasion.ResultsMiR-21 was overexpressed in SCCs, when compared to the adjacent non-tumor tissues (P = 0.0007), and was mainly localized in the cytoplasm of stromal cells adjacent to malignant cells. Accordingly, miR-21 expression was increased in tumors with high versus low stromal content (P = 0.04). When co-cultured with normal fibroblasts, miR-21 expression was elevated in SCC cells (KYSE-30), while its expression was restricted to fibroblasts when co-cultured with adenocarcinoma cells (OE-33 and FLO-1). MiR-21 was detected in conditioned media of cancer cell lines, illustrating the release of this miRNA into the environment. Co-culturing with normal fibroblasts or addition of fibroblast conditioned media caused a significant increase in cell migration and invasion potency of KYSE-30 cells (P<0.0001). In addition, co-culturing cancer cells with fibroblasts and expression of miR-21 induced the expression of the cancer associated fibroblast (CAF) marker S100A4.ConclusionsMiR-21 expression is mostly confined to the SCC stroma and its release from fibroblasts influences the migration and invasion capacity of SCC cells. Moreover, miR-21 may be an important factor in “activating” fibroblasts to CAFs. These findings provide new insights into the role of CAFs and the extracellular matrix in tumor microenvironment formation and in tumor cell maintenance, and suggest miR-21 may contribute to cellular crosstalk in the tumor microenvironment.

SOX2 overlapping transcript (SOX2OT) is a long non-coding RNA which harbors one of the major regulators of pluripotency, SOX2 gene, in its intronic region. SOX2OT gene is mapped to human chromosome 3q26.3 (Chr3q26.3) locus and is extended in a high conserved region of over 700 kb. Little is known about the exact role of SOX2OT; however, recent studies have demonstrated a positive role for it in transcription regulation of SOX2 gene. Similar to SOX2, SOX2OT is highly expressed in embryonic stem cells and down-regulated upon the induction of differentiation. SOX2OT is dynamically regulated during the embryogenesis of vertebrates, and delimited to the brain in adult mice and human. Recently, the disregulation of SOX2OT expression and its concomitant expression with SOX2 have become highlighted in some somatic cancers including esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, lung squamous cell carcinoma, and breast cancer. Interestingly, SOX2OT is differentially spliced into multiple mRNA-like transcripts in stem and cancer cells. In this review, we are describing the structural and functional features of SOX2OT, with an emphasis on its expression signature, its splicing patterns and its critical function in the regulation of SOX2 expression during development and tumorigenesis.