Serum and tissue miRNAs: potential biomarkers for the diagnosis of cervical cancer

Mahdieh Farzanehpour,Vahid Salimi,Talat Mokhtari Azad,Setareh Akhavan,Somayeh Jalilvand,Ebrahim Faghihloo,Sayed-Hamidreza Mozhgani

doi:10.1186/s12985-019-1220-y

Abstract

BackgroundFinding new biomarkers for the early detection of cervical cancer is an essential requirement in this field. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the expression level of potential biomarkers in progression of cervical cancer in patients with cervical cancer compared to normal subjects.MethodsThe expression levels of tissue and serum miRNAs, including miR-9, miR-192 and miR-205, were investigated in 36 normal, 18 precancer, and 18 cervical cancer samples using real-time polymerase chain reaction.ResultsThe results showed the higher significant expressions of miR-9, miR-192 and miR-205 in the tissue of cancer samples than those in the normal samples. Moreover, the miR-192 and miR-205 expression were significantly increased in the cancer group in comparison with the precancer group. Examination of serum samples revealed the increase in the expression level in the cancer groups than in the normal samples, for miR-9, miR-192 and miR-205 and the expressions of miR-9, miR-192 and miR-205 were significantly up-regulated in the precancer group in comparison with the normal group. Also the expression of miR-205 was remarkably increased in the cancer group in comparison with the precancer group. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses showed the highest area under the curve value for miR-192.ConclusionsGiven the increased expression level of miR-192 in cancer and in precancerous tissue and serum compared with the normal tissue and serum validated by analysing the ROC curve, miR-192 can be used as potential biomarker for the early detection of cervical cancer.

Highlights

Finding new biomarkers for the early detection of cervical cancer is an essential requirement in this field
Evidence shows that miRNAs are directly involved in cancer pathogenesis; discovering their expression levels is beneficial to determine the disparate stages of cancer and treatment [10,11,12,13]
We investigated for the first time the biomarker potential of a collection of miRNAs among cervical cancer patients

Summary

Introduction

Finding new biomarkers for the early detection of cervical cancer is an essential requirement in this field. We aimed to evaluate the expression level of potential biomarkers in progression of cervical cancer in patients with cervical cancer compared to normal subjects. Human papillomavirus (HPV) is a non-enveloped double-stranded DNA virus that undergoes its life cycle in either the mucosal or the cutaneous stratified squamous epithelia [3]. About 90% of human genes are predicted to be regulated by miRNAs. MiRNAs may have significant effects on the gene expression in approximately every biological process [8, 9]. Evidence shows that miRNAs are directly involved in cancer pathogenesis; discovering their expression levels is beneficial to determine the disparate stages of cancer and treatment [10,11,12,13].

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