We have recently reported that MicroRNAs (miR)-221 and miR-222 were up-regulated in human thyroid papillary carcinomas in comparison with the normal thyroid tissue. Bioinformatic analysis proposed the p27(Kip1) protein, a key regulator of cell cycle, as a candidate target for the miR-221/222 cluster. Here, we report that the enforced expression of miR-221 and miR-222 was able to reduce p27(Kip1...

Studies have shown that miR-221 and miR-222 are deregulated in many cancers, including prostate cancer. Nevertheless, the biological role and the underlying mechanisms of miR-221 and miR-222 in the pathogenesis of androgen-independent prostate cancer are still not clear. The proliferation, apoptosis, cell cycle distinction, and migration capacity of prostate cells were determined following tran...

It is generally regarded that E-cadherin is downregulated during tumorigenesis via Snail/Slug-mediated E-cadherin transcriptional reduction. However, this transcriptional suppressive mechanism cannot explain the failure of producing E-cadherin protein in metastatic breast cancer cells after overexpressing E-cadherin mRNA. Here we reveal a novel mechanism that E-cadherin is post-transcriptionall...

Continuity of cycling cell lineages relies on the activities of undifferentiated stem cell-containing subpopulations. Transition to a differentiating state must occur periodically in a fraction of the population to supply mature cells, coincident with maintenance of the undifferentiated state in others to sustain a foundational stem cell pool. At present, molecular mechanisms regulating these a...

BACKGROUND & AIMS Substance P (SP), a neuropeptide member of the tachykinin family, plays a critical role in colitis. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs that negatively regulate gene expression. However, whether SP modulates expression of microRNAs in human colonic epithelial cells remains unknown. METHODS We performed microRNA profiling analysis of SP-stimulated human colonic epith...

microRNAs (miRNAs) play an important role in cancer prognosis. They are small molecules, approximately 17-25 nucleotides in length, and their high stability in human serum supports their use as novel diagnostic biomarkers of cancer and other pathological conditions. In this study, we analyzed the expression patterns of miR-21 and miR-221 in the serum from a total of 100 Egyptian female subjects...

BACKGROUND MiR-221 and miR-222 are two highly homologous microRNAs whose upregulation has been recently described in several types of human tumors, for some of which their oncogenic role was explained by the discovery of their target p27, a key cell cycle regulator. We previously showed this regulatory relationship in prostate carcinoma cell lines in vitro, underlying the role of miR-221/222 as...

AIM The present study aimed to investigate the regulation and involvement of miR-221 in the differentiation of human adipose tissue-derived mesenchymal stem cells (hASCs). The relationships between miR-221 and pro-inflammatory markers and adipokines were also explored. METHODS Eight adipose tissues were obtained from four obese (mean body mass index (BMI) =31.7 kg/m(2)) and four lean (mean BM...