Volume 11, Issue 23 of @Oncotarget reported that the authors have previously established that mi R-151a functions as an onco-mi R in non-small cell lung cancer cells by inducing partial EMT and enhancing tumor growth.
Here, the authors identify anti-mi R-151a as a molecule that promotes endothelial cell contacts and barrier properties, suggesting that mi R-151a regulates cell-cell junctions.
They find that induced mi R-151a expression enhances endothelial cell motility and angiogenesis and these functions depend on mi R-151a-induced Slug levels.
Moreover, The authors show that mi R-151a overexpression enhances tumor-associated angiogenesis in 3D vascularized tumor spheroid assays.
Their results suggest that mi R-151a plays multi-faceted roles in the lung, by regulating multiple functions in distinct cell types.
Dr. Irene Munk Pedersen from The University of California as well as The Scintillon Institute said, " Angiogenesis , or the growth of new networks of blood vessels from existing vessels, is an important natural process used for growth, healing, and reproduction. "
Proper regulation of angiogenesis is essential not only for developing an adult's healthy organs to support growth and metabolism but also for disease progression since abnormal vessel growth and/or function are hallmarks of cancer, ischemic and chronic inflammatory diseases.
Slug and Snail may regulate a distinct but overlapping set of genes and therefore Snail may compensate for Slug in the Slug-knock-out context.
There is a need to characterize the repertoire of master mi R regulators in normal and diseased microenvironments to further understand how to restore the delicate balance of cell homeostasis when it has been lost.
The authors find that anti-mi R-375 and anti-mi R-151a strengthen cell-cell contact and endothelial cell barrier in primary lung endothelial cells, relative to control samples.
The Munk Pedersen Research Team concluded in their Oncotarget Priority Research Paper , " Our results show that increased miR-151 expression, significantly promotes endothelial cell motility and angiogenesis in 2D and 3D models and that miR-151a-induced Slug expression is required for these endothelial cell properties. Our findings provide a new avenue to the understanding of the processes in the lung niche environment, and may facilitate the development of potential therapeutics against lung cancer. "
###
Sign up for free Altmetric alerts about this article
DOI - https://doi.org/10.18632/oncotarget.27331
Full text - https://www.oncotarget.com/article/27331/text/
Correspondence to - Irene Munk Pedersen - imp@uci.edu
Keywords - angiogenesis , miR-151a , Slug , tumor microenvironment , endothelial cell
About Oncotarget
Oncotarget is a weekly, peer-reviewed, open access biomedical journal covering research on all aspects of oncology.
To learn more about Oncotarget, please visit https://www.oncotarget.com or connect with:
SoundCloud - https://soundcloud.com/oncotarget
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/Oncotarget/
Twitter - https://twitter.com/oncotarget
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/oncotarget
Pinterest - https://www.pinterest.com/oncotarget/
Reddit - https://www.reddit.com/user/Oncotarget/
Oncotarget is published by Impact Journals, LLC please visit http://www.ImpactJournals.com or connect with @ImpactJrnls
Oncotarget