MicroRNAs in the Diagnosis of Malignancy of Supratentorial Brain Gliomas and Prognosis of Disease Progression

Evgeny V Stupak; Yulia A Veryasikina; Sergey E Titov; Arsen S Askandaryan; James C Hiana; Igor F Zhimulyov; Vyacheslav V Stupak

doi:10.7759/cureus.35906

MicroRNAs in the Diagnosis of Malignancy of Supratentorial Brain Gliomas and Prognosis of Disease Progression

Cureus. 2023 Mar 8;15(3):e35906. doi: 10.7759/cureus.35906. eCollection 2023 Mar.

Authors

Evgeny V Stupak¹, Yulia A Veryasikina², Sergey E Titov^{2

3}, Arsen S Askandaryan⁴, James C Hiana⁵, Igor F Zhimulyov², Vyacheslav V Stupak¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Neurosurgery, Novosibirsk Research Institute of Traumatology and Orthopedics n.a. Ya.L. Tsivyan, Novosibirsk, RUS.
² Laboratory of Genetics, Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, RUS.
³ Genetics, AO Vector-Best, Novosibirsk, RUS.
⁴ Department of Psychiatry, Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, New York City, USA.
⁵ Department of Neurology, State University of New York Downstate Medical Center, New York City, USA.

Abstract

Introduction: The study of brain tumors has shown that microRNAs can act as both oncogenes and tumor suppressors and, consequently, can be used as biomarkers for the diagnosis and prognosis of such tumors. Thus, big interest arises in the role of microRNA and its part in oncogenesis in the human brain to find key molecules that can act as tumor markers for diagnostic and prognostic purposes, as well as potential therapeutic agents.

Study aim: The sim of this study was to assess histological, molecular, and genetic metrics in patients with supratentorial gliomas, and indicate diagnostic and prognostic abilities of microRNA usage as biomarkers of the grade of malignancy of the tumor.

Materials and methods: Clinical and genetic studies were performed in 107 operated patients with supratentorial gliomas of different malignancies. The expression levels of 10 microRNAs (-16, -21¸ -31, -124, - 125b, -181b, -191, -221, -223, and -451) were analyzed using real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The results were analyzed statistically using Statistica 12.0 (Statistica, Hamburg, Germany) and GraphPad Prism 9 software (GraphPad Software Inc., Boston, Massachusetts, United States).

Results: Based on a comprehensive statistical analysis involving the database of the clinical results of treatment of all 107 patients (combined treatment methods, quality of life, and survival) and microRNA expression levels, specific profiles of microRNA expression typical of different histotypes of gliomas of different malignancy were identified, the prognostic significance of the studied microRNAs as potential predictors of survival in patients with brain gliomas was determined, and microRNAs with the highest prognostic value were identified among them.

Keywords: brain gliomas; gliomas of different malignancy; microrna; microrna expression; molecular genetic study; predictor of survival; real-time pcr.