Circulating miR-221/222 reduces CD4+ T cells by inhibiting CD4 expression in colorectal cancer.

Many patients with cancers have low levels of CD4+ in their peripheral blood. However, the molecular mechanism is still unclear. Here, we found that the blood levels of miR-221 and miR-222 were dramatically increased in patients with colorectal cancer (CRC), and both circulating miR-211 and miR-222 served as sensitive diagnostic markers with an area under the curve of 0.8790 and 0.9148, respectively. Transfection of either miR-221 or miR-222 resulted in the reduction of the surface CD4 antigen level but not the surface CD8 antigen level. The luciferase reporter assay showed that miR-221/222 directly regulated CD4 expression in human primary T cells. These data showed that miR-221/222 levels were upregulated in the blood of patients with CRC and that the expression of CD4 in human primary T cells was inhibited by miR-221/222. These findings provide a novel strategy for modulating the number of CD4+ T cells in the blood and further adjusting the microenvironment suitable for immunotherapy. © The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Center for Excellence in Molecular Cell Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

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Jiajia Hu, Jiawei Zhang, Meng Yu, Zukai Liu, Yan Zou, Liwen Hong, Tianyu Zhang, Jing Sun, Minhua Zheng, Xuekai Zhu, Zhengting Wang, Sanhong Liu. Circulating miR-221/222 reduces CD4+ T cells by inhibiting CD4 expression in colorectal cancer. Acta biochimica et biophysica Sinica. 2021 Oct 12;53(10):1367-1376

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PMID: 34357372

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