Highlights from this issue
- Emad El-Omar,
- Alexander Gerbes,
- William Grady, Editor and Deputy Editors
- Helicobacter pylori
- acid-related diseases
- non-ulcer dyspepsia
- genetic polymorphisms
- gastric neoplasia
Luminal GI
Promising new approach to treatment of oesophageal cancer
MicroRNA's are a relatively recently discovered form of small RNA's that suppress the expression of target genes. There are over 700 identified microRNAs in humans and each microRNA regulates the expression of multiple target genes. They are often over or under expressed in cancer and they appear to play an important role in the behaviour of many cancers. One of these microRNA's, miR-375, has been shown to be involved in glucose regulation and β-cell growth and is down-regulated in gastric and liver cancer. Kong and colleagues now show that miR-375 is also strongly down-regulated in oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma secondary to DNA methylation and that the decreased expression associates with advanced stage, distant metastasis, and poor overall and disease-free survival of these patients (figure 1). It appears that miR-375 directly targets the insulin growth factor 1 receptor (IGF1R), which activates the AKT signalling pathway. Thus, loss of miR-375 may be a new biomarker for oesophageal squamous cell cancers that will respond to drugs targeting the AKT pathway (see page 33).
(E) Down-regulation of miR-375 is significantly associated with poorer overall survival and (F) disease-free survival.
Coeliac disease and end stage renal disease
Individuals with coeliac disease (CD) suffer increased risk of diabetes mellitus type 1, cancers and possibly renal disease. However, the risk of end stage renal disease (ESRD) in biopsy-verified CD is unknown. In this issue of Gut, Welander et al conducted a population-based prospective …
