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Widespread deregulation of microRNA expression in human prostate cancer

Oncogene volume 27, pages 1788–1793 (2008)Cite this article

Abstract

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small regulatory RNAs that can regulate gene expression by binding to mRNA sequences and repressing target-gene expression post-transcriptionally, either by inhibiting translation or promoting RNA degradation. We have analysed expression of 328 known and 152 novel human miRNAs in 10 benign peripheral zone tissues and 16 prostate cancer tissues using microarrays and found widespread, but not universal, downregulation of miRNAs in clinically localized prostate cancer relative to benign peripheral zone tissue. These findings have been verified by real-time RT–PCR assays on select miRNAs, including miR-125b, miR-145 and let-7c. The downregulated miRNAs include several with proven target mRNAs whose proteins have been previously shown to be increased in prostate cancer by immunohistochemistry, including RAS, E2F3, BCL-2 and MCL-1. Using a bioinformatics approach, we have identified additional potential mRNA targets of one of the miRNAs, (miR-125b) that are upregulated in prostate cancer and confirmed increased expression of one of these targets, EIF4EBP1, in prostate cancer tissues. Our findings indicate that changes in miRNA expression may have an important role in the biology of human prostate cancer.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by grants from the Department of Veterans Affairs Merit Review program (MI) and the National Cancer Institute to the Baylor prostate cancer SPORE program (P50CA058204) and by use of the facilities of the Michael E DeBakey Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

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Author notes

  1. M Ozen

    Present address: 5Current address: Yeditepe University, Department of Medical Genetics, Istanbul, Turkey,

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pathology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA

    M Ozen, M Ozdemir & M Ittmann

  2. Michael E DeBakey Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Houston, TX, USA

    M Ozen, M Ozdemir & M Ittmann

  3. Department of Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA

    C J Creighton

  4. Dan L Duncan Cancer Center, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA

    C J Creighton & M Ittmann

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  1. M Ozen
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  2. C J Creighton
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to M Ittmann.

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Supplementary Information accompanies the paper on the Oncogene website (http://www.nature.com/onc).

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Ozen, M., Creighton, C., Ozdemir, M. et al. Widespread deregulation of microRNA expression in human prostate cancer. Oncogene 27, 1788–1793 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.onc.1210809

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