Role of MicroRNA/Epithelial-to-Mesenchymal Transition Axis in the Metastasis of Bladder Cancer

Overview

Journal Biomolecules

Publisher MDPI

Specialties Biochemistry
Molecular Biology

Date 2020 Aug 14

PMID 32784711

Citations 44

Authors

Milad Ashrafizadeh

Kiavash Hushmandi

Mehrdad Hashemi

Mohammad Esmaeil Akbari

Peter Kubatka

Mehdi Raei

Lenka Koklesova

Md Shahinozzaman

Reza Mohammadinejad

Masoud Najafi

Gautam Sethi

Alan Prem Kumar

Ali Zarrabi

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Bladder cancer (BC) is the 11th most common diagnosed cancer, and a number of factors including environmental and genetic ones participate in BC development. Metastasis of BC cells into neighboring and distant tissues significantly reduces overall survival of patients with this life-threatening disorder. Recently, studies have focused on revealing molecular pathways involved in metastasis of BC cells, and in this review, we focus on microRNAs (miRNAs) and their regulatory effect on epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) mechanisms that can regulate metastasis. EMT is a vital process for migration of BC cells, and inhibition of this mechanism restricts invasion of BC cells. MiRNAs are endogenous non-coding RNAs with 19-24 nucleotides capable of regulating different cellular events, and EMT is one of them. In BC cells, miRNAs are able to both induce and/or inhibit EMT. For regulation of EMT, miRNAs affect different molecular pathways such as transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β), Snail, Slug, ZEB1/2, CD44, NSBP1, which are, discussed in detail this review. Besides, miRNA/EMT axis can also be regulated by upstream mediators such as lncRNAs, circRNAs and targeted by diverse anti-tumor agents. These topics are also discussed here to reveal diverse molecular pathways involved in migration of BC cells and strategies to target them to develop effective therapeutics.

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