The relationship between microRNAs and bladder cancer: are microRNAs useful to predict bladder cancer in suspicious patients?

Abstract

Purpose: Recent studies indicate that circulating micro RNAs (miRNAs) are novel class of non-invasive biomarkers with diagnostic and prognostic information. We evaluated the miRNA expressions in bladder cancer (BC) and their associations with disease diagnosis.

Methods: We profiled the expressions of 379 miRNAs in the plasma samples from patients with non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) (n = 34) and non-malignant urological diseases as a control group (n = 32). Patients were evaluated regarding with age, miRNA expressions, by using descriptive statistics. miRNA expression in extracted RNA was quantified using the NanoString nCounter Digital Analyzer.

Results: The analysis of plasma miRNA levels in the marker identification cohort indicated that plasma (miR-1260a, let-7a-3p miR-196b-5p, miR-196a-5p, miR-99a-5p, miR-615-5p, miR-4301, miR-28-3p, miR-4538, miR-1233-3p, miR-4732-5p, miR-1913, miR-1280) levels were increased in NMIBC patients compared to control subjects. There were no significant differences other parameters studied between groups.

Conclusions: The analysis of serum plasma miRNA (miR-1260a, let-7a-3p miR-196b-5p, miR-196a-5p, miR-99a-5p, miR-615-5p, miR-4301, miR-28-3p, miR-4538, miR-1233-3p, miR-4732-5p, miR-1913, miR-1280) levels could be useful plasma biomarkers for BC.

Keywords: Biomarker; Bladder cancer; miRNA.