TY - JOUR IS - 7 Y1 - 2017/02/14/ A1 - Lynam-Lennon, N A1 - Heavey, S A1 - Sommerville, G A1 - Bibby, BA A1 - Ffrench, B A1 - Quinn, J A1 - Gasch, C A1 - O'Leary, JJ A1 - Gallagher, MF A1 - Reynolds, JV A1 - Maher, SG N1 - Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). SN - 1949-2553 ID - discovery1534642 AV - public EP - 11413 JF - Oncotarget N2 - Resistance to neoadjuvant chemoradiation therapy (CRT) remains a critical barrier to the effective treatment of esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC). Cancer stem-like cells (CSCs) are a distinct subpopulation of cells implicated in the resistance of tumors to anti-cancer therapy. However, their role in the resistance of EAC to CRT is largely unknown. In this study, using a novel in vitro isogenic model of radioresistant EAC, we demonstrate that radioresistant EAC cells have enhanced tumorigenicity in vivo, increased expression of CSC-associated markers and enhanced holoclone forming ability. Further investigation identified a subpopulation of cells that are characterised by high aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) activity, enhanced radioresistance and decreased expression of miR-17-5p. In vitro, miR-17-5p was demonstrated to significantly sensitise radioresistant cells to X-ray radiation and promoted the repression of genes with miR-17-5p binding sites, such as C6orf120. In vivo, miR-17-5p was significantly decreased, whilst C6orf120 was significantly increased, in pre-treatment EAC tumour samples from patients who demonstrated a poor response to neoadjuvant CRT. This study sheds novel insights into the role of CSCs in the resistance of EAC to CRT and highlights miR-17-5p as a potential biomarker of CRT sensitivity and novel therapeutic target in treatment resistant EAC. VL - 8 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.18632/oncotarget.13940 SP - 11400 KW - Cancer stem-like cells KW - esophageal adenocarcinoma KW - microRNA KW - predictive biomarker KW - radioresistance TI - MicroRNA-17 is downregulated in esophageal adenocarcinoma cancer stem-like cells and promotes a radioresistant phenotype ER -