Inflammation and aberrant microRNAs expressions promote colon cancer growth and progression. However, the molecular mechanisms that link these pathways remain to be determined. In this dissertation, the causal relationship between inflammation and aberrant microRNAs expressions were explored. Elevated expression of prostaglandin E₂ (PGE₂) receptor EP4 has been seen in human colon cancer. However, the mechanism by which EP4 receptor protein is deregulated is not known. Experiments in this dissertation demonstrate, for the first time, that the EP4 receptor is negatively regulated by miR-101.In previous work, we show that S100P is induced by stimulation of the PGE₂/EP4 receptor signaling pathway. S100P is a ligand for Receptor for Advance Glycation End-products (RAGE). However, little is known about the downstream targets of S100P/RAGE signaling. Here, we demonstrated that S100P/RAGE receptor signaling induces expression of miR-155 via the transcription factor AP-1. In addition, we investigated the genes that are downstream of S100P/RAGE/miR-155 pathway. Our microarrays and bioinformatics analyses identified two novel miR-155 targets, WNK1 and ZNF493 that are down-regulated upon activation of the S100P/RAGE/miR-155 pathway. Lastly, we investigated whether inhibition of S100P/RAGE signaling pathway would be beneficial as a cancer therapy using methyl-2-acetamidoacrylate (M2AA). M2AA treatments decreased colon cancer cells viability and also suppressed colon tumor growth and metastasis in vitro and also in the CAM assay in vivo. Taken together, our results suggest that modulation of S100P/RAGE signaling by M2AA offers therapeutic potential as anti-metastatic agents. In summary, this dissertation provides new insights on the molecular events that link inflammation pathways and microRNAs to colon cancer as well as show that therapeutic strategies targeting these pathways could be effective in treatment of neoplasia.

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