Tayebeh Rezaei

According to reports of the international agency for cancer on research, although malignant melanoma shows less prevalence than nonmelanoma skin cancers, it is the major cause of skin cancer mortality. Given that, the production of effective vaccines to control melanoma is eminently required. In this regard, DNA‐based vaccines have been extensively investigated for melanoma therapy. DNA vaccines are capable of inducing both cellular and humoral branches of immune responses. These vaccines possess some valuable advantages such as lack of severe side effects and high stability compared to conventional vaccination methods. The ongoing studies are focused on novel strategies in the development of DNA vaccines encoding artificial polyepitope immunogens based on the multiple melanoma antigens, the inclusion of molecular adjuvants to increase the level of immune responses, and the improvement of delivery approaches. In this review, we have outlined the recent advances in the field of melanoma DNA vaccines and described their implications in clinical trials as a strong strategy in the prevention and control of melanoma.

Micro RNAs (miRNAs) show a considerable promise as a therapeutic agent for combination therapy of colorectal cancer (CRC). Given that, the current study was purposed to explore the potential therapeutic role and underlying mechanism of miR‐193a as a promising tumor suppressor in human CRC cell lines in combination with Taxol. Therefore, HT‐29 cells with the lowest expression levels of miR‐193a were treated with miR‐193a mimics and Taxol, separately or in combination. Functional analyses showed that the combination therapy inhibited migration and colony formation of HT‐29 cells and arrested the cell cycle at the G1 phase. Moreover, treatment with Taxol reduced cell survival with an increase in mRNA expression of metastasis‐related genes caspase‐3 and caspase‐9, whereas miR‐193a transfection alone didn't significantly influence cell viability and apoptosis induction. Quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction results also revealed that miR‐193a replacement decreased the expression levels of c‐Myc, MMP‐9, vimentin, and ROCK in treatment groups compared to the controls. Therefore, it could be concluded miR‐193a inactivates cell migration via suppression of metastasis pathways in CRC and through downregulation of c‐Myc, acts as a negative regulator of cell cycle and growth. Then, our findings imply that miR‐193a replacement combined with Taxol chemotherapy could be considered as a new potential therapeutic approach for improvement of CRC treatment.