Role of miR-203 in estrogen receptor-mediated signaling in the rat uterus and endometrial carcinoma
JOURNAL OF CELLULAR BIOCHEMISTRY
Authors: Zierau, Oliver; Helle, Janina; Schadyew, Sabina; Morgenroth, Yanni; Bentler, Martin; Hennig, Alexander; Chittur, Sridar; Tenniswood, Martin; Kretzschmar, Georg
Abstract
The role of microRNAs (miRNA) in estrogen receptor (ER) signaling in the uterus and in endometrial cancer is not well understood. We therefore analyzed miRNA expression in uterine samples from a standard 3-day uterotrophic assay using young female adult rats to identify E2-regulated miRNAs. Microarray analysis identified 47 E2 down-regulated miRNAs including miR-30a, and 25 E2up-regulated miRNAs including miR-672, miR-203, and miR-146b. The strongly E2-upregulated miR-203 was selected for further analysis. miR-203 was deleted in the rat endometrial adenocarcinoma cell line, RUCA-I, using CRISPR/CAS9. Five clones devoid of miR-203 expression were generated. Proliferation was reduced and G2-arrest was observed in all miR-203 deficient RUCA-I clones. Transfection with a miR-203-3p mimic partially rescues this effect. Comparison of mRNA expression in three miR-203 knockout clones to wild type RUCA-I cells reveals 566 miR-203-upregulated and 592 miR-203-downregulated genes. 43 of the genes that are upregulated by miR-203 knockout in vitro are downregulated in the uterus by E2. Of these Acer2, Zbtb20, Ptn, Rcbtb2, Mum1l1, Hmgn3, and Nfat5 possess one or more seed sequence matches in their 3-UTR that are predicted to be targets of miR-203. These data demonstrate the importance of E2 regulated miRNAs in general, and miR-203 in particular, for E2 regulated gene expression and physiological processes including proliferation and cell migration, in the uterus as well as in the etiology of endometrial carcinomas.
Exome array analysis of ischaemic stroke: results from a southern Swedish study
EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF NEUROLOGY
Authors: Soderholm, M.; Almgren, P.; Jood, K.; Stanne, T. M.; Olsson, M.; Ilinca, A.; Lorentzen, E.; Norrving, B.; Engstrom, G.; Melander, O.; Jern, C.; Lindgren, A.
Abstract
Background and purpose Genome-wide association (GWA) studies have identified a few risk loci for ischaemic stroke, but these variants explain only a small part of the genetic contribution to the disease. Coding variants associated with amino acid substitutions or premature termination of protein synthesis could have a large effect on disease risk. We performed an exome array analysis for ischaemic stroke. Methods Patients with ischaemic stroke (n = 2385) and control subjects (n = 6077) from three Swedish studies were genotyped with the Illumina HumanOmniExpressExome BeadChip. Single-variant association analysis and gene-based tests were performed of exome variants with minor allele frequency of < 5%. A separate GWA analysis was also performed, based on 700 000 genotyped common markers and subsequent imputation. Results No exome variant or gene was significantly associated with all ischaemic stroke after Bonferroni correction (all P > 1.8 x 10(-6) for single-variant and >4.15 x 10(-6) for gene-based analysis). The strongest association in single-variant analysis was found for a missense variant in the DNAH11 gene (rs143362381; P = 5.01 x 10(-6)). In gene-based tests, the strongest association was for the ZBTB20 gene (P = 7.9 x 10(-5)). The GWA analysis showed that the sample was homogenous (median genomic inflation factor = 1.006). No genome-wide significant association with overall ischaemic stroke risk was found. However, previously reported associations for the PITX2 and ZFHX3 gene loci with cardioembolic stroke subtype were replicated (P = 7 x 10(-15) and 6 x 10(-3)). Conclusions This exome array analysis did not identify any single variants or genes reaching the pre-defined significance level for association with ischaemic stroke. Further studies on exome variants should be performed in even larger, well-defined and subtyped samples.