Project description:Lung cancer (LC) is one of the major cancers, with survival of patients dictated by the time of diagnosis. Cell-free circulating miRNAs have been proposed as candidate biomarkers for non-small cell lung cancer. The goal of this study was to profile the miRNAs in blood plasma of lung cancer patients diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma (SCC, n=14) or adenocarcinoma (AD, n=6), and healthy individuals (HD) using miRCURY LNA miRNA qPCR Serum/Plasma Panel (Exiqon). Average Cq of detected assays was used for normalization of miRNA expression.
Project description:Gene expression of samples derived from normal lung and patients with small cell lung cancer (SCLC) or non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC)
Project description:Exosomes play important roles in intercellular communication through the delivery of their cargoes, which include proteins, lipids, and RNAs. Increasingly, multiple studies have reported the association between exosomal small non-coding RNAs and cancer, due to their regulatory functions in gene expression. Hence, analysis of the features of small non-coding RNA expression and their incorporation into exosomes is important for cancer research. Here, we performed deep sequencing to investigate the expression of small RNAs in plasma exosomes from lung adenocarcinoma patients, lung squamous cell carcinoma patients, and healthy controls. We found that 5’ YRNA hY4-derived fragments are significantly upregulated in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) exosomes, and may serve as a novel class of circulating biomarkers for NSCLC diagnosis. We also identified that the RNY4P7 gene on chromosome 2 may not be a pseudogene, because the corresponding transcript hY4 reverse fragment was detected in exosomes and cells. Further, we demonstrated that a panel of small RNAs, including miR-451a and miR-122-5p, may be selectively sorted into NSCLC exosomes. Overall, our studies have indicated a wider range of biological effects in NSCLC that may be mediated by exosomal small RNAs than previously known.