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Research Paper|Volume 10, Issue 5|pp 1000—1014

Integrated analysis of colorectal cancer microRNA datasets: identification of microRNAs associated with tumor development

Luca Falzone1, Letizia Scola2, Antonino Zanghì3, Antonio Biondi4,5, Antonio Di Cataldo3,5, Massimo Libra1,5, Saverio Candido1,5
  • 1Department of Biomedical and Biotechnological Sciences, University of Catania, Catania 95123, Italy
  • 2Department of Pathobiology and Medical Biotechnologies, University of Palermo, Palermo 90127, Italy
  • 3Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences and Advanced Technology "G.F. Ingrassia", University of Catania, Catania 95125, Italy
  • 4Department of General Surgery, Vittorio Emanuele Hospital, University of Catania, Catania 95124, Italy
  • 5Research Center for Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment of Cancer (PreDiCT), University of Catania, Catania 95123, Italy

* * Equal contribution

Received: April 4, 2018Accepted: May 7, 2018Published: May 18, 2018
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.101444

Copyright: © 2018 Falzone et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the leading cause of cancer death worldwide. Currently, no effective early diagnostic biomarkers are available for colorectal carcinoma. Therefore, there is a need to discover new molecules able to identify pre-cancerous lesions. Recently, microRNAs (miRNAs) have been associated with the onset of specific pathologies, thus the identification of miRNAs associated to colorectal cancer may be used to detect this pathology at early stages. On these bases, the expression levels of miRNAs were analyzed to compare the miRNAs expression levels of colorectal cancer samples and normal tissues in several miRNA datasets. This analysis revealed a group of 19 differentially expressed miRNAs. To establish the interaction between miRNAs and the most altered genes in CRC, the mirDIP gene target analysis was performed in such group of 19 differentially expressed miRNAs. To recognize miRNAs able to activate or inhibit genes and pathways involved in colorectal cancer development DIANA-mirPath prediction analysis was applied. Overall, these analyses showed that the up-regulated hsa-miR-183-5p and hsa-miR-21-5p, and the down-regulated hsa-miR-195-5p and hsa-miR-497-5p were directly related to colorectal cancer through the interaction with the Mismatch Repair pathway and Wnt, RAS, MAPK, PI3K, TGF-β and p53 signaling pathways involved in cancer development.