No abstract

Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is characterized by excessive production of collagens by fibroblasts that leads to vast fibrosis. Resistance to apoptosis is one of the possible underlying mechanisms of fibrosis in these patients. Survivinis involved in inhibition of apoptosis and aberrantly functions in SSc. Since dysregulation of survivin-targeting microRNAs (miRNAs) has frequently been observed in cancer and some autoimmune disorders, this study aimed to investigate their expression status in dermal fibroblasts from SSc patients. DiffuseSSc patients were selected according to American College of Rheumatology criteria. Isolated fibroblasts from 10 SSc and 10 healthy skin biopsies were cultured. After examining purity of the cells, mRNA and miRNAs extraction was performed followed by complementary DNA (cDNA) synthesis. Relative expressions ofsurvivin mRNA, miR-16-5p, miR-320a, miR-218-5p, miR-708-5p and miR-542-3p were analyzed using real time PCR. Survivin mRNA expression was significantly 1.85-fold upregulated in fibroblasts from SSc patients compared with healthy controls (p=0.046). Among the studied miRNAs, miR-542-3p expression was significantly decreased (p=0.033), while enhanced expression of miR-708-5p was observed in SSc fibroblasts (p=0.05) in comparison to healthy subjects. Downregulation of miR-542-3p significantly correlated with survivin overexpression (r=˗0.45, p=0.049). Downregulation of miR-542-3p that is correlated with higher surviving expression levels might be a possible cause of apoptosis resistance in SSc fibroblasts, hence providing a new understanding of the disease pathogenesis.

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is an important risk factor in the development of breast cancer. 1 Biological carcinogens, such as viral infections, are critically important factors involved in the initiation and development of various tumors, and previous studies have shown that viral infections are involved in about 18%-20% of cancers. 2,3 We employed a case-control study using 83 breast cancer patients and 31 healthy control subjects (Table 1), which was approved by ethical committee of Shahrekord University of Medical Sciences, Shahrekord, Iran, under the Ethics code of 93-125391, to investigate the association between EBV infection and breast cancer development. The DNA and total RNA extraction was performed by QIAamp Tissue Kit (QIAGEN) and RNeasy Mini Kit (QIAGEN). The viral, anoikis resistance, and cellular/inflammatory genes and proteins were quantitated using qRT-PCR (QIAGEN)