MicroRNA regulation in colorectal cancer tissue and serum

PLoS One. 2019 Aug 30;14(8):e0222013. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0222013. eCollection 2019.

Abstract

Colorectal cancer is recognized as the fourth leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Thus, there is ongoing search for potential new biomarkers allowing quicker and less invasive detection of the disease and prediction of the treatment outcome. Therefore, the aim of our study was to identify colorectal cancer specific miRNAs expressed in cancerous and healthy tissue from the same patient and to further correlate the presence of the same miRNAs in the circulation as potential biomarkers for diagnosis. In the current study we detected a set of 40 miRNAs differentially regulated in tumor tissue when comparing with healthy tissue. Additionally, we found 8 miRNAs differentially regulated in serum of colorectal cancer patients. Interestingly, there was no overlap in miRNAs regulated in tissue and serum, suggesting that serum regulated miRNAs may be not actively secreted from colorectal tumor cells. However, four of differentially expressed miRNAs, including miR-21, miR-17, miR-20a and miR-32 represent the miRNAs characteristic for different tumor types, including breast, colon, lung, pancreas, prostate and stomach cancer. This finding suggests important groups of miRNAs which can be further validated as markers for diagnosis of tumor tissue and regulation of carcinogenesis.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Aged
  • Biomarkers, Tumor*
  • Case-Control Studies
  • Circulating MicroRNA*
  • Colorectal Neoplasms / blood
  • Colorectal Neoplasms / genetics*
  • Computational Biology / methods
  • Gene Expression Profiling
  • Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic
  • Gene Regulatory Networks
  • Humans
  • MicroRNAs / blood
  • MicroRNAs / genetics*
  • Middle Aged

Substances

  • Biomarkers, Tumor
  • Circulating MicroRNA
  • MicroRNAs

Grants and funding

The study was funded by the Florida Legislative Crohn’s grant (MMM). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.