title: Developing a prognostic micro-RNA signature for human cervical carcinoma.
abstract: Cervical cancer remains the third most frequently diagnosed and fourth leading cause of cancer death in women worldwide. We sought to develop a micro-RNA signature that was prognostic for disease-free survival, which could potentially allow tailoring of treatment for cervical cancer patients. A candidate prognostic 9-micro-RNA signature set was identified in the training set of 79 frozen specimens. However, three different approaches to validate this signature in an independent cohort of 87 patients with formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) specimens, were unsuccessful. There are several challenges and considerations associated with developing a prognostic micro-RNA signature for cervical cancer, namely: tumour heterogeneity, lack of concordance between frozen and FFPE specimens, and platform selection for global micro-RNA expression profiling in this disease. Our observations provide an important cautionary tale for future miRNA signature studies for cervical cancer, which can also be potentially applicable to miRNA profiling studies involving other types of human malignancies.
authors.affiliation: Ontario Cancer Institute, University Health Network, Toronto, ON, Canada; Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
authors.forename: Christine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: How
authors.affiliation: Division of Biostatistics, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network, Toronto, ON, Canada.
authors.forename: Melania
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pintilie
authors.affiliation: Ontario Cancer Institute, University Health Network, Toronto, ON, Canada; Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
authors.forename: Jeff P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Bruce
authors.affiliation: Ontario Cancer Institute, University Health Network, Toronto, ON, Canada.
authors.forename: Angela B Y
authors.initials: AB
authors.lastname: Hui
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, University Health Network, Toronto, ON, Canada.
authors.forename: Blaise A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Clarke
authors.affiliation: Ontario Cancer Institute, University Health Network, Toronto, ON, Canada; Department of Radiation Oncology, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network, Toronto, ON, Canada; Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
authors.forename: Philip
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Wong
authors.affiliation: Informatics & Biocomputing Platform, Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, Toronto, ON, Canada.
authors.forename: Shaoming
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yin
authors.affiliation: Informatics & Biocomputing Platform, Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, Toronto, ON, Canada.
authors.forename: Rui
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.affiliation: Informatics & Biocomputing Platform, Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, Toronto, ON, Canada.
authors.forename: Daryl
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Waggott
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada; Informatics & Biocomputing Platform, Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, Toronto, ON, Canada; Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
authors.forename: Paul C
authors.initials: PC
authors.lastname: Boutros
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network, Toronto, ON, Canada; Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
authors.forename: Anthony
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Fyles
authors.affiliation: Ontario Cancer Institute, University Health Network, Toronto, ON, Canada; Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada; Division of Medical Oncology, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network, Toronto, ON, Canada.
authors.forename: David W
authors.initials: DW
authors.lastname: Hedley
authors.affiliation: Ontario Cancer Institute, University Health Network, Toronto, ON, Canada; Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
authors.forename: Richard P
authors.initials: RP
authors.lastname: Hill
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network, Toronto, ON, Canada; Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Milosevic
authors.affiliation: Ontario Cancer Institute, University Health Network, Toronto, ON, Canada; Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada; Department of Radiation Oncology, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network, Toronto, ON, Canada; Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
authors.forename: Fei-Fei
authors.initials: FF
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D018572:Disease-Free Survival; D005260:Female; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling / Q000379:methods; D015972:Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic; D006801:Humans; D035683:MicroRNAs / Q000235:genetics*; D008875:Middle Aged; D016612:Paraffin Embedding; D011379:Prognosis; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D002583:Uterine Cervical Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics* / Q000401:mortality* / Q000473:pathology; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D035683:MicroRNAs