Purpose: The role of microRNA (miRNA) in cholangiocarcinoma was not clear. The aim of this study was to find the potential diagnostic and prognostic miRNA in cholangiocarcinoma patients.
Methods: The miRNA expression profiles in cholangiocarcinoma patients from The Cancer Genome Atlas and Gene Expression Omnibus (GSE53870) were analyzed. The comparison of overall survival was performed using the Kaplan-Meier method. The targeted genes of prognostic miRNA were identified in miRanda, PicTar, or TargetScan, and their cell signaling pathways were analyzed by the Database for Annotation, Visualization and Integrated Discovery.
Results: In The Cancer Genome Atlas and the Gene Expression Omnibus miRNA dataset, miR-92b and miR-99a were found with concordant directionality, up-regulated and down-regulated, respectively. In The Cancer Genome Atlas survival data, patients with the high level of miR-99b had obviously shorter overall survival time ( P=0.038). However, the level of miR-99a was not found to be significant. The 17 shared target genes of miR-92b were identified, such as DAB21IP, BCL21L11, SPHK2, PER2, and TSC1. The related pathways included positive regulation of transcription, positive regulation of cellular biosynthetic process, regulation of programmed cell death, etc. Conclusion: miR-92b was up-regulated in cholangiocarcinoma compared with normal controls. The high level of miR-92b was associated with adverse outcomes in cholangiocarcinoma patients, which might be partly explained by the targeted genes of miR-92b and their signaling pathways.
Keywords: Cholangiocarcinoma; miR-92b; overall survival.