Abstract
Background
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a major contributor to the worldwide cancer burden. Recent studies on HCC have demonstrated dramatic alterations in expression of several cytochrome P450 (CYP) family members that play a crucial role in biotransformation of many drugs and other xenobiotics; however, the mechanisms responsible for their deregulation remain unclear.
Methods
We investigated a potential involvement of miRNAs in downregulation of expression of CYPs observed in HCC tumors. We compared miRNA expression profiles (TaqMan Array Human MicroRNA v3.0 TLDA qPCR) between HCC human patient tumors with strong (CYP-) and weak/no (CYP+) downregulation of drug-metabolizing CYPs. The role of significantly deregulated miRNAs in modulation of expression of the CYPs and associated xenobiotic receptors was then investigated in human liver HepaRG cells transfected with relevant miRNA mimics or inhibitors.
Results
We identified five differentially expressed miRNAs in CYP− versus CYP+ tumors, namely miR-29c, miR-125b1, miR-505, miR-653 and miR-675. The two most-upregulated miRNAs found in CYP− tumor samples, miR-29c and miR-653, were found to act as efficient suppressors of CYP1A2 or AHR expression.
Conclusions
Our results revealed a novel role of miR-653 and miR-29c in regulation of expresion of CYPs involved in crucial biotransformation processes in liver, which are often deregulated during liver cancer progression.
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Abbreviations
- AHR:
-
Aryl hydrocarbon receptor
- CYP:
-
Cytochrome P450
- HCC:
-
Hepatocellular carcinoma
- miRNA:
-
MicroRNA
- mRNA:
-
Messenger RNA
- NR1I2 (PXR):
-
Nuclear receptor 1I2, pregnane X receptor
- qPCR:
-
Quantitative polymerase chain reaction
- TCDD:
-
2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank Karel Souček for instrument and core facility support, Petra Ovesná for statistical analysis and useful discussions, Zuzana Tylichová for help with EROD method, Jana Svobodová for technical assistance, Iva Lišková, Kateřina Svobodová, Martina Urbánková for technical support, Pavel Souček for help with antibody selection, and Jan Remšík for discussions.
Funding
Supported by Ministry of Health of the Czech Republic, grant No. 17-28231A. All rights reserved. The institutional support was provided by the long-term institutional funding of the Institute of Biophysics of the Czech Academy of Sciences (RVO: 68081707) and by Ministry of Health of the Czech Republic, DRO (UHHK, 00179906).
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Conceptualization, AHV, JN, JV; methodology, JN, MK, KN, JH, ZT; software, LR; formal analysis, MK, KN, LR, JN, AHV; investigation, MK, JN, KN, VZ, JH, LB, PF, PK; resources, JV, OS, IK, VP, ZK, LO; data curation, MK, JN, LR, KN, JH, AHV; writing—original draft preparation, AHV, MK, JN; writing—review & editing, AHV, JV, MK, JN, KN; visualization, MK, LR, JN, AHV; supervision, AHV, JN, JV; project administration, AHV, JN, JV; funding acquisition, JN, AHV.
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Krkoška, M., Nekvindová, J., Nevědělová, K. et al. Role of miR-653 and miR-29c in downregulation of CYP1A2 expression in hepatocellular carcinoma. Pharmacol. Rep 74, 148–158 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43440-021-00338-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s43440-021-00338-9