Exploration of bladder cancer molecular mechanisms based on miRNA-mRNA regulatory network

Abstract

To explore the complex molecular mechanisms of bladder cancer, mRNA and miRNA expression profiles were combined for systematic analyses. A total of 18 common differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified from two mRNA expression datasets which consisted of 206 tumor and 74 normal tissues. Then, survival analysis based on the SurvExpress database showed that the common DEGs were able to significantly differentiate low- and high-risk groups in 4 public bladder cancer datasets (p<0.01). Notably, the tumor and normal samples were able to be almost clearly classified into 4 groups based on these identified common DEGs. In addition, 6 out of the 18 common DEGs, including ALDH1A1 and SRPX, are regulated by 6 reported miRNAs based on regulatory network analyses. Expression levels of the 6 DEGs were validated in 10 bladder cancer samples using RT-PCR, and the expression values were concordant with the microarray results. Collectively, our analyses indicated that various biological processes are involved in the development and progression of bladder cancer. Firstly, cell cycle checkpoints and DNA repair networks of cancer stem-like cells were regulated by high expression of ALDH1A1, and hence promoted tumor self-renewal or metastasis. Then, activation of HspB6 induced the angiogenesis process which provides necessary nutrition and oxygen for tumor cells. Moreover, downregulation of the expression of tumor-suppressor genes SRPX and FLNC further promoted apoptosis and metastasis. The identification of potential biological processes and genes can be helpful for the understanding of bladder cancer molecular mechanisms.

Identification of differentially expressed genes, biological pathways and prognostic signature in bladder cancer

“…Similarly studies show that FLNC with low expression in BC was involved in tumor migration and invasion (55). In addition, this study showed that FLNC is lowly expression in BC.…”

Disulfiram reduces metastatic osteosarcoma tumor burden in an immunocompetent Balb/c or-thotopic mouse model

“…Our group has demonstrated that metastatic OS cells have higher levels of ALDH expression and activity, correlating with a metastatic phenotype in vitro [ 10 ]. Cancer cells with high ALDH have demonstrated enhanced tumorigenicity across multiple subtypes, including lung [ 21 ], breast [ 22 ], ovarian [ 23 ], prostate [ 24 ], bladder [ 25 ], esophageal [ 26 ], melanoma [ 27 ], and leukemia [ 28 ].…”

Identification of the Key Factors Related to Bladder Cancer by lncRNA-miRNA-mRNA Three-Layer Network

“…Studies on the relationship between urinary tumors and miR-145, miR-205 indicate that a large number of miRNAs have been involved in tumor progression (Catto et al, 2011;Simonato et al, 2013;Braicu et al, 2015;Chen et al, 2017). Some people also analyzed the differentially expressed miRNAs and their target genes in BC from the perspective of the network, and it is pointed out that miRNAs participate in the occurrence and development of BC by regulating their target genes, and are related to BC recurrence (Guancial et al, 2014;Jin et al, 2015;Li et al, 2017;Zhao et al, 2017). LncRNAs and mRNAs can form complex coexpression networks in various diseases including BC, and promote the development of BC by regulating proteincoding genes (Cao et al, 2018b;Li et al, 2018;Chen et al, 2019a;Chen et al, 2019b).…”