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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Vet. Sci.
Sec. Oncology in Veterinary Medicine
Volume 11 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fvets.2024.1461506

Free circulating versus extracellular vesicle-associated microRNA expression in canine T-cell lymphoma

Provisionally accepted
Cecilia Capuano Cecilia Capuano 1Valentina Moccia Valentina Moccia 2*Antonella Molinari Antonella Molinari 2Filippo Torrigiani Filippo Torrigiani 2Livia Ferro Livia Ferro 1Serena Ferraresso Serena Ferraresso 2Federico Bonsembiante Federico Bonsembiante 3Chiara Leo Chiara Leo 1Valentina Zappulli Valentina Zappulli 2
  • 1 Istituto Veterinario di Novara, Granozzo con Monticello, Italy
  • 2 Department of Comparative Biomedicine and Food, School of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, University of Padua, Legnaro, Italy
  • 3 Department of Animal Medicine, Production and Health, School of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, University of Padua, Padua, Italy

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Canine lymphoma (cL) is one of the most frequent cancers in dogs. The T-cell lymphoma (TcL) is not the most common phenotype but presents an aggressive behavior. MicroRNAs (miRNAs), are small, single-stranded, non-coding RNA molecules which can circulate freely in blood or be associated with extracellular vesicles (EVs). The dysregulation of certain miRNAs has been identified in numerous types of human cancers and they have been largely investigated as possible tumors biomarkers in human medicine, while research in veterinary oncology is still scarce. The aim of this study was to compare the expression patterns of free circulating and EV-associated miRNAs in dogs with T-cell lymhoma (TcL) and healthy dogs. Eight dogs with TcL were selected as the lymphoma group (LG) and eight dogs were included as controls (Ctrl). Plasma samples were collected at the time of the diagnosis and EVs isolated with ultracentrifugation. miRNAs were extracted from both the circulating EVs and the plasma supernatant, obtaining EV-associated and free-miRNAs. Quantitative real-time PCR was performed to analyze the expression of 88 target miRNAs. Ten and seven differentially expressed miRNAs between LG and Ctrl were detected in EV-associated and free-miRNAs, respectively. Among EV-associated and free-miRNAs, only has-miR-222-3p was overexpressed in both conditions. All the differentially expressed miRNAs detected in this study, have been already described as dysregulated in other human or canine cancers. The EV-associated miRNAs, which appear to be more stable and better conserved than free-miRNAs, could be investigated in further larger studies to better assess their use as possible biomarkers for TcL.

    Keywords: extracellular vesicles, miRNA, liquid biopsy, veterinary oncology, Canine lymphoma

    Received: 08 Jul 2024; Accepted: 08 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Capuano, Moccia, Molinari, Torrigiani, Ferro, Ferraresso, Bonsembiante, Leo and Zappulli. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Valentina Moccia, Department of Comparative Biomedicine and Food, School of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, University of Padua, Legnaro, Italy

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