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Regulus Therapeutics and Collaborators Publish Data on a Critical Role for miR-21 in Brain Tumors
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Regulus Therapeutics LLC and Isis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. has announced the publication of new research in the journal Molecular and Cellular Biology on the role of the microRNA known as miR-21 in regulating certain cancer cells.
Researchers at Regulus Therapeutics, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and other collaborators discovered a new role for miR-21 in glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), the most malignant and aggressive form of glioma, a primary brain tumor.
Research performed in collaboration with Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and other researchers demonstrated that miR-21 is responsible for the regulation of multiple genes associated with glioma tumor cell death, migration and invasiveness.
In the peer-reviewed research, scientists showed that increased miR-21 levels in tumor cells correlated with the grade or aggressiveness of the tumor; highest levels of miR-21 were associated with the most aggressive forms of GBM. To elucidate the role that miR-21 plays in GBM, anti-miR-21 compounds were used to inhibit miR-21 function in human tumor cells.
Inhibiting miR-21 function affected the expression of genes associated with tumor invasiveness, proliferation, migration and other processes exploited by tumor cells. As a whole, these data correlated miR-21 regulation with the aggressiveness of the tumor, and suggest that miR-21 is involved in the regulation of many different cellular processes necessary for tumorogenesis.
“The over-expression of miR-21 is observed in a variety of cancers, including glioblastoma, breast, lung, colon and others. In this study we were able to identify genes affected by levels of miR-21 over-expression. Further, our studies show that blocking miR-21 function disrupted many of the pathways critical for tumor invasiveness and proliferation,” said Peter Linsley, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer of Regulus Therapeutics.
“This new research adds to a rapidly growing body of evidence suggesting that inhibiting the function of a single microRNA could have a profound effect on multiple disease-causing proteins, thereby interfering with entire cellular pathways and defining a new therapeutic approach for treatment of disease.”
