Abstract Malignant characteristics of cancers, represented by rapid cell proliferation and high metastatic potential, are a major cause cancer-related mortality. As multifunctional RNA-binding protein, heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein K (hnRNPK) is closely associated with cancer progression in various types cancers. In this study, we sought to identify hnRNPK-regulated long intergenic no...

Testicular tumors, the most common cancer in young men, arise from abnormalities in germ cells during fetal development. Unconventional inheritance for testicular germ cell tumor (TGCT) risk both in humans and mice implicates epigenetic mechanisms. Apolipoprotein B mRNA-editing enzyme complex 1 (APOBEC1) cytidine deaminase and Deadend-1, which are involved in C-to-U RNA editing and microRNA-dep...

Argonaute (Ago) proteins associate with microRNAs (miRNAs) to form the core of the RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC) that mediates post-transcriptional gene silencing of target mRNAs. As key players in anti-viral defense, Ago proteins are thought to have the ability to interact with human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) RNA. However, the role of this interaction in regulating HIV-1 rep...

Within hours after its initiation, the severe systemic inflammatory response of sepsis shifts to an adaptive anti-inflammatory state with coincident immunosuppression. This anti-inflammatory phenotype is characterized by diminished proinflammatory cytokine gene expression in response to toll-like receptor (TLR) stimulation with bacterial endotoxin/lipopolysaccharide (LPS), also known as endotox...

RNA interference (RNAi) is a fundamental biological process that plays a crucial role in regulation of gene expression in many organisms. Transcriptional gene silencing (TGS) is one of the important nuclear roles of RNAi. Our previous data show that Entamoeba histolytica has a robust RNAi pathway that links to TGS via Argonaute 2-2 (Ago2-2) associated 27-nucleotide small RNAs with 5'-polyphosph...

In addition to suppressing cellular gene expression, certain miRNAs potently facilitate replication of specific positive-strand RNA viruses. miR-122, a pro-viral hepatitis C virus (HCV) host factor, binds and recruits Ago2 to tandem sites (S1 and S2) near the 5΄ end of the HCV genome, stabilizing it and promoting its synthesis. HCV target site selection follows canonical miRNA rules, but how no...

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are noncoding RNAs that regulate global gene expression. miRNAs often act synergistically to repress target genes, and their dysregulation can contribute to the initiation and progression of a variety of cancers. The clinical relationship between global expression of miRNA and mRNA in cancer has not been studied in detail. We used whole-genome microarray analyses of CD138-enr...

DNA damage provokes DNA repair, cell-cycle regulation and apoptosis. This DNA-damage response encompasses gene-expression regulation at the transcriptional and post-translational levels. We show that cellular responses to UV-induced DNA damage are also regulated at the post-transcriptional level by microRNAs. Survival and checkpoint response after UV damage was severely reduced on microRNA-medi...

RNA interference (RNAi) can be induced by intracellular expression of a short hairpin RNA (shRNA). Processing of the shRNA requires the RNaseIII-like Dicer enzyme to remove the loop and to release the biologically active small interfering RNA (siRNA). Dicer is also involved in microRNA (miRNA) processing to liberate the mature miRNA duplex, but recent studies indicate that miR-451 is not proces...