Affiliations: [a] Department of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Medical School of Southeast University, The Key Laboratory of Developmental Genes and Human Disease in Ministry of Education, Nanjing 210009, Jiangsu, China | [b] Institute of Life Sciences, The Key Laboratory of Developmental Genes and Human Disease, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, Jiangsu, China | [c] Department of Urologic Surgery, The Affiliated Cancer Hospital of Jiangsu Province of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing 210009, Jiangsu, China
Correspondence:
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Corresponding authors: Zehui Hong, Department of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Southeast University
School of Medicine, Nanjing 210009, Jiangsu, China. Tel.: +86 255199030; Fax: +86 255195430; E-mail: hongzehui@seu.edu.cn. Ting Xu, Department of Urologic Surgery, The Affiliated Cancer Hospital of Jiangsu
Province of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing 210009, Jiangsu, China. Tel.: +86 2583283535; Fax: +86 2583283530; E-mail: dr_xu@sina.com
Abstract: OBJECTIVE: UTX and JMJD3 are recently identified histone
H3 lysine 27 (H3K27) demethylases. Many studies have shown aberrant H3K27
trimethylation (H3K27me3) levels widely exist in multiple cancers, and that
altered H3K27me3 levels are correlated with tumorigenesis and tumor
progression. To investigate expression patterns of UTX and JMJD3 genes in
renal cell carcinoma (RCC) and bladder cancer and the relationship between
gene expression and tumor development. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Samples were collected from 35 patients with
RCC and 21 patients with bladder cancer and qRT-PCR was performed. RESULTS: By comparing with adjacent normal tissues, the expression
of JMJD3 (10/21 = 47.62%) and UTX (10/21 = 47.62%) were significantly
upregulated in bladder cancer tissues and the expression of JMJD3
(15/35 = 42.86%) was significantly downregulated in RCC tissues. Stratified
analyses revealed that upregulated expression of JMJD3 was significantly
associated with poorly differentiated tumor nuclear grade (p= 0.005) and
advanced clinical stage (p= 0.043) in the bladder cancer group, while
downregulated expression of JMJD3 was significantly associated with advanced
clinical stage (p= 0.045) and poorly differentiated tumor nuclear grade
(p= 0.011) in the RCC group. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest JMJD3 could be a hallmark and is
involved in the development of RCC and bladder cancers. The potential role
of H3K27 demethylases as biomarkers needs further investigations.
