Title:Lauric Acid Modulates Cancer-Associated microRNA Expression and Inhibits the Growth of the Cancer Cell
Volume: 20
Issue: 7
Author(s): Poonam Verma, Amit Ghosh*, Manisha Ray and Saurav Sarkar
Affiliation:
- Department of Physiology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Bhubaneswar, Odisha,India
Keywords:
miRNA, lauric acid, anticancer activity, metabolic pathways, tumour suppressor, oncogenes.
Abstract:
Background: microRNAs are known to regulate various protein-coding gene expression posttranscriptionally.
Fatty acids are cell membrane constituents and are also known to influence the biological
activities of the cells like signal transduction, growth and differentiation of the cells, apoptosis induction, and
other physiological functions. In our experiments, we used lauric acid to analyse its effects on human cancerous
cell lines.
Objective: Our objective was to speculate the miRNA expression profile in lauric acid treated and untreated
cancerous cell lines and further study the metabolic pathways of the targeted tumour suppressor and oncogenes.
Methods: The KB cells and HepG2 cells were treated with lauric acid and miRNA was isolated and the expression
of tumour suppressor and oncogenic miRNA was measured by quantitative PCR. The untreated cells were
used as control. The metabolic pathways of the target tumour suppressor and oncogenes were examined by
GeneMANIA software.
Results: Interestingly, the lauric acid treatment suppresses the expression of oncogenic miRNA and significantly
upregulated the expression of some tumour suppressor miRNAs. GeneMANIA metabolic pathway revealed that
the upregulated tumour suppressor miRNAs regulate several cancer-associated pathways such as DNA damage,
signal transduction p53 class mediator, stem cell differentiation, cell growth, cell cycle phase transition, apoptotic
signalling pathway, cellular response to stress and radiation, etc. whereas oncogenic miRNAs regulate the
cancer-associated pathway like cell cycle phase transition, apoptotic signalling pathway, cell growth, response to
oxidative stress, immune response activating cell surface protein signalling pathway, cyclin-dependent protein
kinase activity, epidermal growth factor receptor signalling pathways, etc.
Conclusion: In our study, we found that lauric acid works as an anticancer agent by altering the expression of
miRNAs.
