Objectives: It has been confirmed that morphine was detrimental to patients with cancers. Hence, we aimed to reveal a certain mechanism of morphine in cancer development.
Methods: Microarray and GSEA analysis were utilized to seek for differently expressed genes and pathway.
Key findings: Bioinformatics analysis identified that downregulation of MARCKS and upregulation of miR-543 in samples treated with morphine. FcγR-mediated phagocytosis pathway was illustrated to be upregulated in the control. PANC-1 and DU145 cell viability was increased but apoptosis was declined as morphine concentration went up from 10-8 to 10-6 mol/l. On the other curve, the viability was reduced and apoptosis was elevated from 10-6 to 10-5 mol/l. The expression of miR-543 ran the same trend as cell viability. Assays in vivo and in vitro validated that miR-543 facilitated cell viability, tumour growth, levels of CA199 and PSA, whereas inhibited apoptosis. MARCKS could target and inhibit miR-543 expression, which exhibited an opposite effect on cancer progression. MiR-543 blocked but MARCKS activated FcγR-mediated phagocytosis pathway.
Conclusions: Morphine at 10-6 mol/l could benefit miR-543 expression to inhibit MARCKS expression, consequently, blocking FcγR-mediated phagocytosis pathway, which contributed to the cancer progression in vitro and in vivo.
Keywords: MARCKS; FcγR-mediated phagocytosis pathway; cancer; miR-543; morphine.
© 2019 Royal Pharmaceutical Society.