Background: Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) development involves complex machinery of genomic and epigenetic regulations including microRNA (miRNA) expression changes. We aimed to analyze the expression patterns of a set of miRNAs in human TNM stage I and II OSCC samples in an autologous normal mucosa-controlled experimental design.
Materials and methods: Forty samples of OSCC and 40 matched normal tissues were evaluated for miR-21, miR-155, miR-191, miR-146a, miR-221 and miR-222 expression in a LightCycler 480(PCR) system.
Results: Our results showed significant overexpression of miR-21, miR-155, miR-191 and miR-221 in paired-sample t-test and the sensitivity/specificity of tests were over 90% in the case of miR-21 and miR-155 on the receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) analysis.
Conclusion: Our results underline the role of miR-21 in OSCC and support the possible causal role of miR-155 and miR-221 in oral carcinogenesis. The overexpression of miR-191 is a novel finding in squamous cell carcinoma.