Altered expression of microRNAs in PC-3 sphere cells of prostate cancer compared with PC-3 adherent cells. Homo sapiens

Metastatic prostate cancer is a leading cause of cancer-related death in men. Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are involved in tumor progression and metastasis, including in prostate cancer. There is an obvious and urgent need for effective cancer stem cells specific therapies in metastatic prostate cancer. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are an important class of pervasive genes that are involved in a variety of biological functions, especially in cancer. The goal of this study was to identify miRNAs involved in prostate cancer metastasis and cancer stem cells. Overall design: Several published reports have demonstrated that non-adherent spheres culture is increasingly used as an effective method to enrich and identify stem cells or putative CSCs.In our previous study, we enriched prostate cancer stem cells from PC-3 sphere cells in serum-free suspension culture and characterized their CSCs properties.Thus, we used spheres as a prostate cancer stem cells model to elucidate its metastatic mechanisms. We examined the miRNA expression profiles of PC-3 sphere cells of prostate cancer compared with PC-3 adherent cells by miRNA microarray.

转移性前列腺癌是男性癌症相关死亡的首要诱因。癌症干细胞（Cancer Stem Cells, CSCs）参与包括前列腺癌在内的肿瘤进展与转移过程。当前，针对转移性前列腺癌的特异性癌症干细胞靶向疗法存在显著且迫切的临床需求。微小RNA（MicroRNAs, miRNAs）是一类广泛分布的重要基因家族，参与诸多生物学功能调控，尤其在癌症发生发展中发挥关键作用。本研究旨在筛选参与前列腺癌转移及癌症干细胞调控过程的miRNAs。整体实验设计：已有多项公开研究证实，非黏附球体培养技术正日益成为富集、鉴定干细胞或潜在癌症干细胞的有效手段。在前期研究中，本课题组通过无血清悬浮培养从PC-3球体细胞中富集得到前列腺癌干细胞，并对其癌症干细胞特性进行了系统表征。因此，本研究采用球体细胞作为前列腺癌干细胞模型，以阐明其转移相关分子机制。本研究通过miRNA微阵列（miRNA microarray）技术，对比分析了前列腺癌PC-3球体细胞与贴壁培养PC-3细胞的miRNA表达谱。