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Updated: Oct 9, 2025

Analysis of Combinatorial miRNA Treatments to Regulate Cell Cycle and Angiogenesis
Published on: March 30, 2019
UC.183, UC.110, and UC.84 Ultra-Conserved RNAs Are Mutually Exclusive with miR-221 and Are Engaged in the Cell Cycle
Fabio Corrà1, Francesca Crudele1, Federica Baldassari1
1Laboratorio per le Tecnologie delle Terapie Avanzate (LTTA), Department of Translational Medicine, University of Ferrara, Via Fossato di Mortara 70, 44121 Ferrara, Italy.
Abstract:
In the human genome, there are about 600 ultra-conserved regions (UCRs), long DNA sequences extremely conserved in vertebrates. We performed a large-scale study to quantify transcribed UCR (T-UCR) and miRNA levels in over 6000 cancer and normal tissue samples to find possible correlation between these kinds of regulatory molecules. Our analysis evidenced several non-coding RNAs showing negative co-regulation with miRNAs; among them, we focused on miR-221 to investigate any relationship with its pivotal role in the cell cycle. We have chosen breast cancer as model, using two cell lines with different phenotypes to carry out in vitro treatments with siRNAs against T-UCRs. Our results demonstrate that the expression of uc.183, uc.110, and uc.84 T-UCRs is mutually exclusive with miR-221 and is engaged in the regulation of CDKN1B expression. In addition, tests with a set of anticancer drugs, including BYL719, AZD5363, AZD8055, AZD7762, and XL765, revealed the modulation of specific T-UCRs without alteration of miR-221 levels.
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