Canine oral malignant melanoma (CoMM) is often treated by radiation therapy in veterinary medicine. However, not all cases are successfully managed by this treatment. For improved efficacy of radiation therapy, biomarkers predicting the radiosensitivity of melanoma cells need to be explored. Here, we, first, developed the radioresistant CoMM cell line, KMeC/R. We found that the expression level of phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) of KMeC/R cells was significantly downregulated compared with KMeC cells. Overexpression of PTEN successfully restored the radiosensitivity of KMeC/R cells, and silencing of PTEN significantly increased the radioresistance of the CoMM cells tested. Next, we focused on microRNAs (miRNAs) to explore the mechanisms of downregulation of PTEN in KMeC/R cells. miR-374b was upregulated in KMeC/R cells compared with that in KMeC cells and in the irradiated CoMM cells tested. Furthermore, miR-374b directly targeted PTEN based on the luciferase activity assay. Moreover, the extrinsic miR-374b significantly increased the radioresistance of KMeC cells. In addition, the expression level of PTEN was significantly downregulated and that of miR-374b tended to be upregulated in recurrent CoMM tissues after radiation therapy compared with the pre-treatment tissues. Thus, the current study suggested that the miR-374b/PTEN signaling pathway possibly plays an important role in CoMM radiosensitivity.
Keywords: PTEN; dog; melanoma; miR-374b; radiation therapy.