Dados do Resumo

Título

Platelets and Cancer: How cellular communication drives gene expression changes

Introdução

Cancer is a public health problem worldwide, leading to the death of approximately 10 million people in 2020. Hanahan and Weinberg described the hallmarks of cancer as changes needed by cancer cells during tumor progression. Genomic instability and non-mutational epigenetic reprogramming are two crucial features that change gene expression. Recently, several reports have indicated that platelets play important roles in carcinogenesis and may be associated with the hallmarks.

Objetivo

This review aimed to associate the functions performed by tumor-educated platelets in cancer progression with each of the expression genic modifications described by Hanahan & Weinberg.

Métodos

This work is an integrative literature review. The research was guided by the following stages: elaboration of the guiding question; definition of the sources for selecting the primary studies and the inclusion and exclusion criteria; definition and extraction of the data; evaluation of the studies included; critical analysis of the results; presentation of the synthesis of the evidence found. The PubMed database was selected, using descriptors and synonyms according to Medical Subject Heading (cancer, epigenetics, platelets, non-coding RNA, transcriptome, DNA methylation, histone modification) and Boolean operators "AND" and "OR". Primary studies and systematic reviews published in english were included

Resultados

Platelets can be educated by tumors and transmit messages to cancer cells, impacting on changes in gene expression, both through genomic instability and epigenetics. Overexpression of GPIbα is associated with oncoprotein functions of c-Myc and also implies the appearance of tetraploidy and double-stranded DNA breaks, especially Burkitt's lymphoma and promyelocytic leukemia. miRNAs, circRNAs and lncRNAs platelet-derived have been described as potential biomarkers in oncology in various types of studies, based on non-small cell lung and breast cancer cell lines and human thyroid, nasopharyngeal, colorectal, breast and gastric tumors. This platelet content is a possible target in cancer diagnosis, prognosis and target therapy. The platelet transcriptome allowed the classification of patients into groups with or without thyroid tumors. Finally, overexpression of PAF implied changes in the DNA methylation pattern and histone modification, promoting transcription in breast tumor cell lines.

Conclusões

Platelet counting has been a reality in clinical analysis laboratories for decades and provides important information regarding the process of hemostasis, but the functional analysis of the biological content present in platelets, as well as the collection and processing methods still need to be explored and standardized. The studies covered in this review open up new perspectives and possibilities for research into the role of platelets in tumor progression.

Financiador do resumo

Ministério da Educação

Palavras Chave

tumor-educated platelets; Câncer; epigenetic