Abstract
Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most frequent cancers occurring in developed countries. Distant CRC metastasis causes more than 90% of CRC-associated mortality. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play a key role in regulating tumor metastasis and could be potential diagnostic biomarkers in CRC patients. This study is aimed at identifying miRNAs that can be used as diagnostic biomarkers for CRC metastasis. Towards this goal, we compared the expression of five miRNAs commonly associated with metastasis (i.e., miR-10b, miR-200c, miR-155, miR-21, and miR-31) between primary CRC (pCRC) tissues and corresponding metastatic lymph nodes (mCRC). Further, bioinformatics analysis of miR-31 was performed to predict target genes and related signaling pathways. Results showed that miR-31, miR-21, miR-10b, and miR-155 expression was increased to different extents, while miR-200c expression was lower in mCRC than that in pCRC. Moreover, we found that the level of both miR-31 and miR-21 was notably increased in pCRC when lymph node metastasis (LNM) was present, and the increase of miR-31 expression was more profound. Hence, upregulated miR-31 and miR-21 expression might be a miRNA signature in CRC metastasis. Moreover, we detected a higher miR-31 level in the plasma of CRC patients with LNM compared to patients without LNM or healthy individuals. With the bioinformatics analysis of miR-31, 121 putative target genes and transition of mitotic cell cycle and Wnt signaling pathway were identified to possibly play a role in CRC progression. We next identified seven hub genes via module analysis; of these, TNS1 was most likely to be the target of miR-31 and had significant prognostic value for CRC patients. In conclusion, miR-31 is significantly increased in the cancer tissues and plasma of CRC patients with LNM; thus, a high level of miR-31 in the plasma is a potential biomarker for the diagnosis of LNM of CRC.
Highlights
Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most common malignancies and the fourth leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide [1]
Among the gene products and signaling molecules involved in the development of CRC, microRNAs, which are short noncoding RNAs measuring 18–25 nucleotides in length, might serve as molecular targets for both diagnosis and therapy. miRNAs have been demonstrated to contribute to a new mechanism of regulating gene expression and are involved in various biological processes of human cancers [3]
They can regulate gene expression posttranscriptionally, and bioinformatics analysis has suggested that miRNAs are capable of regulating the expression of numerous mammalian genes, among which tumor-promoting genes and tumor suppressor genes are included [4]. miRNAs were reported to be active in cancer development, acting as oncogenes, tumor suppressors, or metastasis promoters [5]
Summary
Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most common malignancies and the fourth leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide [1]. MiRNAs have been demonstrated to contribute to a new mechanism of regulating gene expression and are involved in various biological processes of human cancers [3]. They can regulate gene expression posttranscriptionally, and bioinformatics analysis has suggested that miRNAs are capable of regulating the expression of numerous mammalian genes, among which tumor-promoting genes and tumor suppressor genes are included [4]. Aberrant miRNA expression is associated with human cancers, and miRNA profiling, as one of the most modern modalities for molecular characterization of tumors, is used for cancer diagnosis and prognostic prediction [6, 7]
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