Identification of potential plasma biomarkers in early-stage nasopharyngeal carcinoma-derived exosomes based on RNA sequencing

Cancer Cell International

Yuanji Xu¹  Zhizhong Lin¹  Wei Zheng¹  Penggang Bai¹  Chuanben Chen¹  Xinyi Huang²  Wangzhong Ye²  Qinyan Chen²  Zijie Wu²  Yanyu Chen³ 

[1] Department of Radiation Oncology, Fujian Medical University Cancer Hospital, Fujian Cancer Hospital, No. 420, Fuma Road, 350014, Fuzhou, Fujian, People’s Republic of China;Department of Radiation Oncology, Fujian Medical University Cancer Hospital, Fujian Cancer Hospital, No. 420, Fuma Road, 350014, Fuzhou, Fujian, People’s Republic of China;Fujian Medical University, Fuzhou, Fujian, People’s Republic of China;School of Nuclear Science and Technology, University of South China, Hengyang, Hunan, China;

关键词: Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC);    Exosomes;    Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO);    Bioinformatics analysis;    Kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes (KEGG);   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12935-021-01881-4

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundEarly diagnosis of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is vital to improve the prognosis of these patients. However, early diagnosis of NPC is typically challenging. Therefore, we explored the pathogenetic roles and associated mechanisms of exosomes in plasma of patients with early-stage NPC.MethodsExosomes in plasma were extracted by ultra-high-speed centrifugation. Western blot and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) were used to verify the purity of exosomes. The sequencing data (6 plasma samples from healthy volunteers vs. 6 NPC plasma samples) were analyzed by principal component analysis (PCA), DESeq2, gene ontology (GO), Kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes (KEGG), and TargetScan. The differentially expressed miRNAs (DEmiRNAs) were obtained from the dataset (GSE118720) downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) repository. Additionally, the datasets downloaded from the GEO database (GSE12452, GSE13597, GSE53819, GSE64634) were used to predict the target genes and functions of hsa-miR-1301-3p. qPCR was applied to verify the differences in the expressions of hsa-miR-1301-3p between 10 normal plasma and 10 NPC plasma samples.ResultsWestern blot, TEM, and Nanoparticle Tracking Analysis showed adequate purity of the extracted exosomes. RNA-seq analysis revealed 21 upregulated miRNAs, and 10 downregulated miRNAs in plasma exosomes of early-stage NPC patients. GO analysis showed that the target genes of DEmiRNAs were mainly enriched in DNA synthesis and transcription regulation. KEGG analysis revealed that DEmiRNAs were mainly enriched in PI3K-Akt and MAPK signaling pathways. Moreover, the expression of hsa-mir-1301-3p was verified to be significantly upregulated in enlarged samples of plasma exosomes.ConclusionsWe identified several DEmiRNAs extracted from tumor-derived exosomes between normal plasma and early-stage NPC plasma. Bioinformatics analyses indicated that these DEmiRNAs may be related to NPC development. Our study may provide novel insights into underlying biomarkers and mechanisms of plasma exosomes in early-stage NPC.

【 授权许可】

CC BY