Therapeutic potential of chemically modified mir-489 in triple-negative breast cancers

Young Hwa Soung, Heesung Chung, Cecilia Yan, Andrew Fesler, Hyungjin Kim, Eok Soo Oh, Jingfang Ju, Jun Chung

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

9 Scopus citations

Abstract

Triple-negative breast cancers (TNBCs) lack ER, PR and her2 receptors that are targets of common breast cancer therapies with poor prognosis due to their high rates of metastasis and chemoresistance. Based on our previous studies that epigenetic silencing of a potential metastasis suppressor, arrestin domain-containing 3 (ARRDC3), is linked to the aggressive nature of TNBCs, we identified a sub-group of tumor suppressing miRNAs whose expressions were significantly up-regulated by ARRDC3 over-expression in TNBC cells. Among these tumor suppressing miRs, we found that miR-489 is most anti-proliferative in TNBC cells. miR-489 also blocked DNA damaging responses (DDRs) in TNBC cells. To define the mechanism by which miR-489 inhibits TNBC cell functions, we screened the potential target genes of miR-489 and identified MDC-1 and SUZ-12 as novel target genes of miR-489 in TNBC cells. To further exploit the therapeutic potentials of miR-489 in TNBC models, we chemically modified the guide strand of miR-489 (CMM489) by replacing Uracil with 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) so that tumor suppressor (miR-489) and DNA damaging (5-FU) components are combined into a single agent as a novel drug candidate for TNBCs. Our studies demonstrated that CMM489 shows superior effects over miR-489 or 5-FU in inhibition of TNBC cell proliferation and tumor progression, suggesting its therapeutic efficacy in TNBC models.

Original languageEnglish
Article number2209
Pages (from-to)1-16
Number of pages16
JournalCancers
Volume12
Issue number8
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 2020

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

Keywords

  • ARRDC3
  • CMM489
  • Chemoresistance
  • MiR-489
  • Triple-negative breast cancers

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