Current understanding of mdig/MINA in human cancers.

Chitra Thakur,Fei Chen

doi:10.18632/genesandcancer.73

Abstract

Mineral dust-induced gene, mdig has recently been identified and is known to be overexpressed in a majority of human cancers and holds predictive power in the poor prognosis of the disease. Mdig is an environmentally expressed gene that is involved in cell proliferation, neoplastic transformation and immune regulation. With the advancement in deciphering the prognostic role of mdig in human cancers, our understanding on how mdig renders a normal cell to undergo malignant transformation is still very limited. This article reviews the current knowledge of the mdig gene in context to human neoplasias and its relation to the clinico-pathologic factors predicting the outcome of the disease in patients. It also emphasizes on the promising role of mdig that can serve as a potential candidate for biomarker discovery and as a therapeutic target in inflammation and cancers. Considering the recent advances in understanding the underlying mechanisms of tumor formation, more preclinical and clinical research is required to validate the potential of using mdig as a novel biological target of therapeutic and diagnostic value. Expression level of mdig influences the prognosis of several human cancers especially cancers of the breast and lung. Evaluation of mdig in cancers can offer novel biomarker with potential therapeutic interventions for the early assessment of cancer development in patients.

Highlights

Human beings are frequently exposed to chemical and physical hazards like automobile exhausts, smoke and industrial emissions in environmental and occupational settings
In our previous studies using lung cancer cell lines and lung epithelial cell line, we found that mdig/MINA enhanced cell proliferation but repressed migration and invasion in in-vitro assays [13]
Using an online database containing gene profiling information from 2,437 cases of lung cancer, we found that high level of mdig/MINA predicts poorer overall survival (OS) of the lung cancer patients who had no lymph node metastasis or had only possible proximal lymph node metastasis

Summary

Introduction

Human beings are frequently exposed to chemical and physical hazards like automobile exhausts, smoke and industrial emissions in environmental and occupational settings. Human lung tumor cell lines showed the presence of an alternative mRNA splicing of the mdig/MINA gene. This has been further strengthened by the fact that increased expression of mdig/MINA as well as H19 has been associated with the poorer survival of patients suffering from lung cancer [15]. 15 out of 19 human lung cancer cell lines showed mdig/MINA expression.

Results

Conclusion