Press Release

Oncotarget Novel plant microRNAs do not show cross-kingdom regulation of pancreatic cancer

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
2020-04-16

Oncotarget Volume 11 Issue 14 reported that the most promising candidates were the already known micro RNA sequence bra-mi R156g-5p and the new sequence Myseq-330, both with predicted human target genes related to apoptosis.

These data demonstrate that broccoletti sprouts contain micro RNA sequences with putative binding sites in human genes, but the sequences evaluated here did not affect cancer growth.

Dr. Ingrid Herr from the Molecular OncoSurgery Group, Section of Surgical Research, Department of General, Visceral and Transplant Surgery at the University of Heidelberg in Heidelberg, Germany and Norbert Gretz from the Medical Research Centre, Medical Faculty Mannheim at the University of Heidelberg in Mannheim, Germany said "Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA) is one of the most lethal malignancies, causing the fourth leading cancer-related mortality of both men and women in the Western world"

"Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA) is one of the most lethal malignancies, causing the fourth leading cancer-related mortality of both men and women in the Western world"

- Dr. Ingrid Herr, Molecular OncoSurgery Group, Section of Surgical Research, Department of General, Visceral and Transplant Surgery at the University of Heidelberg

For example, animal mi Rs are mostly encoded within introns, while most plant mi Rs are located in non-protein-coding transcription units.

Although both mi R types are formed by cleavage from pri-mi Rs and pre-mi Rs, the location of biogenesis and the responsible enzymes are different, which explains why animal mi Rs are usually 22 to 23 nucleotides long, whereas plant mi Rs are shorter and usually contain only 21 nucleotides.

As mentioned above, the 3 ends of plant mi Rs are usually methylated, which confers stability, but only a few animal mi Rs have the same modification.

Figure 1: Cartoon of recent findings of plant miRNA actions. Recent studies suggest that the dietary uptake of miR-168a from rice, miR-159 from broccoli, miR-2911 from honeysuckle, a cocktail of plant-miRs (-34a, -143 and -145), miR-29b from cow milk, and miR-162a from Brassica campestris safely pass the gastrointestinal tract and can be found in the blood stream or tissue of consumers. Cross-kingdom regulatory effects of plant-derived miRs in other species have described: miR-168 effects low-density lipoprotein removal by targeting low-density lipoprotein receptor adapter protein (LDLRAP1); miR-159 inhibits breast cancer growth by targeting transcription factor 7 (TCF7); miR2911 suppresses viral infection by inhibiting virus replication; a cocktail of plant-miRs (-34a, -143 and -145) reduces colon tumour burden through an unrevealed mechanism; miR-29 targets runt-related transcription factor 2 (RUNX2); and miR-162a regulates honeybee caste development by targeting mTOR.

Usually, plant mi Rs are absolutely complementary to their target mRNAs, while animal mi Rs adopt partial complementarity for target recognition.

Based on differences in mRNA and mi R interactions, plant mi Rs induce target mRNA degradation, while animal mi Rs mainly repress translation.

The Herr/Gretz Research Team concluded in their Oncotarget Research Article, "we found no evidence that broccoletti miR sequences affect predicted human target genes. Our data combined with those of other authors suggest that it is unlikely that dietary RNAs are functional in mammals. However, we were the first to identify sequences of putative miRs from broccoletti sprouts. Even though we were not able to find a biological function for the 2 selected broccoletti-miR candidates in human pancreatic cancer cell lines, our study provides a new database of broccoletti-miRs, which is now available for further studies."

DOI - https://doi.org/10.18632/oncotarget.27527

Full text - https://www.oncotarget.com/article/27527/text/

Correspondence to - Ingrid Herr - i.herr@uni-heidelberg.de and Norbert Gretz - norbert.gretz@medma.uni-heidelberg

Keywords - broccoli, broccoletti, Brassica rapa sylvestris, plant microRNAs, cross-kingdom regulation

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