Lymphangioleiomyomatosis (LAM), a multisystem disease of women, is manifest by the proliferation of smooth muscle-like cells in the lung resulting in cystic lung destruction. Women with LAM can also develop renal angiomyolipomas. LAM is caused by mutations in the tuberous sclerosis complex genes (TSC1 or TSC2), resulting in hyperactive mammalian Target of Rapamycin (mTOR) signaling. The mTOR in...

Background: p57, a cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor, is considered to be a candidate tumor suppressor gene that has been implicated in Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome and sporadic cancers. In addition, decreased expression of p57 protein has been frequently observed in pancreatic, lung, breast, bladder, gastrointestinal tract and prostate cancers. However, p57 gene mutations are rare in these canc...

Substantial data indicate that microRNA 21 (miR-21) is significantly elevated in glioblastoma (GBM) and in many other tumors of various origins. This microRNA has been implicated in various aspects of carcinogenesis, including cellular proliferation, apoptosis, and migration. We demonstrate that miR-21 regulates multiple genes associated with glioma cell apoptosis, migration, and invasiveness, ...

Breast cancer (BCa) is one of the leading health problems among women. Although significant achievements have led to advanced therapeutic success with targeted therapy options, more efforts are required for different subtypes tumors and according genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic alterations. This study underlines role microRNA-21 (miR-21) in metastatic MDA-MB-231 breast cells. Following knock...

Signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (Stat3) is implicated in the pathogenesis of many malignancies and essential for IL-6-dependent survival and growth of multiple myeloma cells. Here, we demonstrate that the gene encoding oncogenic microRNA-21 (miR-21) is controlled by an upstream enhancer containing 2 Stat3 binding sites strictly conserved since the first observed evolutionary ...

Background: MicroRNA-99a has been believed to play a critical role in progression in various cancers; however, the prognostic and clinicopathological value of microRNA-99a in cancers remains unclarified. Methods and Results: We first evaluated the prognostic significance of microRNA-99a expression in 21 human cancer types in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). Patients with lower microRNA-99a level...

Highly malignant glioblastoma (GBM) is characterized by high genetic heterogeneity and infiltrative brain invasion patterns, and aberrant miRNA expression has been associated with hallmark malignant properties of GBM. The lack of effective GBM treatment options prompted us to investigate whether miRNAs would constitute promising therapeutic targets toward the generation of a gene therapy approa...

BACKGROUND Exosomes are 40-nm to 100-nm membrane vesicles that are secreted by various cells, and they play a major role in cell-cell communication. The objective of this study was to clarify the significance of the levels of microRNA in exosomes extracted from the sera of patients with esophageal squamous cell cancer (ESCC). METHODS The authors isolated exosomes in serum samples from patient...