When co-cultured with immune cells and endothelial cells, miR21-overexpressing B-lymphoma cells were resistant to chemotherapeutic agents, but sensitive to Bcl-2 inhibitor ABT-199, irrespective of Bcl-2 expression on lymphoma cells.
As only the son had the major clinical manifestations of ALPS-FAS, miR-21-3p should be investigated as playing a critical role in ALPS physiopathology, including the development of lymphoma.
Overexpression of miRNA-21 and miRNA-23a were associated with staging, WBC, upregulated serum lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) level, presence of lymphoma size ≥6 cm, and cluster of differentiation 10 (CD10) expression, while miRNA-125b expression had an association with staging and upregulated serum LDH level (both P<0.05).
Dysregulation of other miRNA, including miR-21, miR-29, miR-150 and miR-155, have also been shown to play crucial roles in the pathogenesis of aggressive transformed, high-grade and refractory lymphomas.
We recently reported that overexpression of miR-21 and/or miR-155 leads to activation of the phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K)-AKT pathway in malignant lymphomas expressing CD3(-)CD56(+) natural killer (NK) cell antigen.
Collectively, these results provide important new insight into the pathogenesis of NK-cell lymphoma/leukemia and suggest targeting miR-21 and/or miR-155 may represent a useful approach to treating NK-cell lymphoma/leukemia.