{"id":1296,"date":"2026-01-24T08:35:20","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T08:35:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peaceful-mccarthy.213-158-90-25.plesk.page\/index.php\/2026\/01\/24\/mir-21-deregulation-in-thyroid-cancer\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T08:35:20","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T08:35:20","slug":"mir-21-deregulation-in-thyroid-cancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peaceful-mccarthy.213-158-90-25.plesk.page\/index.php\/2026\/01\/24\/mir-21-deregulation-in-thyroid-cancer\/","title":{"rendered":"MIR-21 DEREGULATION IN THYROID CANCER"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"article-authors\">Frezzetti D.<sup>1<\/sup>, Guerra C.<sup>2<\/sup>, Barbacid M.<sup>2<\/sup>, Di Lauro R.<sup>3<\/sup>, De Vita G.<sup>4<\/sup><\/div>\n<div class=\"article-institutes\"><sup>1<\/sup>Biogem s.c.a r.l. Ariano Irpino, <sup>2<\/sup>CNIO, Madrid, <sup>3<\/sup>Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn Napoli, <sup>4<\/sup>Dipartimento di Biologia e Patologia Cellulare e Molecolare, Universita di Napoli Federico II<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-abstract\">\n<h2>Abstract<\/h2>\n<p>In cancer microRNAs are often dysregulated with their expression patterns being correlated with clinically relevant tumor characteristics. Recently, microRNAs were shown to be directly involved in cancer initiation and progression. Thyroid carcinomas comprise a heterogeneous group of neoplasms with distinctive clinical and pathological characteristics. Activating mutations in Ras genes are frequently found in poorly differentiated and in anaplastic thyroid carcinomas. We have recently shown that oncogenic Ras deregulate several microRNAs in thyroid cells. One of the top aberrantly expressed ones is miR-21, a microRNA prevoiusly reported overexpressed in a wide variety of cancers and causally linked to cellular proliferation, survival and migration. By using an inducible Ras oncogene we demonstrated that Ras induces overexpression of miR-21 at very early times after its constitutive activation, and that such overexpression is maintained at later times as well as in chronically Ras-transformed thyroid cells. Analysis of a panel of thyroid tumors with different hystotypes revealed that miR-21 is overexpressed mainly in anaplastic carcinomas, thus correlating with the most aggressive phenotype. Interestingly, this induction seems to be cell-type specific, since the inducible Ras oncogene is unable to increase miR-21 levels in cultured fibroblasts. Moreover, our data show that activation of at least two different Ras effectors is necessary to induce miR-21 expression. We then asked if the ability of Ras in inducing miR-21 overexpression is also verified in vivo. To this aim we analyzed the expression of this microRNA in a mouse model of Ras-induced lung tumorigenesis, showing that Ras constitutive activation is able to increase miR-21 levels in normal lung and that Ras-initiated lung cancer progression is paralleled by a further increase in miR-21 expression. Taken together, our data strongly suggest that the constitutive activation of Ras could be responsible for the increased expression of miR-21 frequently observed in human cancers.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Frezzetti D.1, Guerra C.2, Barbacid M.2, Di Lauro R.3, De Vita G.4 1Biogem s.c.a r.l. Ariano Irpino, 2CNIO, Madrid, 3Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn Napoli, 4Dipartimento di Biologia e Patologia Cellulare e Molecolare, Universita di Napoli Federico II Abstract In cancer microRNAs are often dysregulated with their expression patterns being correlated with clinically relevant tumor characteristics. <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/peaceful-mccarthy.213-158-90-25.plesk.page\/index.php\/2026\/01\/24\/mir-21-deregulation-in-thyroid-cancer\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,2,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-volume-7-issue-3","category-journal-articles","category-volume-7"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceful-mccarthy.213-158-90-25.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceful-mccarthy.213-158-90-25.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceful-mccarthy.213-158-90-25.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceful-mccarthy.213-158-90-25.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceful-mccarthy.213-158-90-25.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/peaceful-mccarthy.213-158-90-25.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1296\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceful-mccarthy.213-158-90-25.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceful-mccarthy.213-158-90-25.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceful-mccarthy.213-158-90-25.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}