Five miRNAs Considered as Molecular Targets for Predicting Esophageal Cancer.
BACKGROUND
Esophageal cancer (EC) is one of the most aggressive malignant gastrointestinal tumors; however the traditional therapies for EC are not effective enough. Great improvements are needed to explore new and valid treatments for EC. We aimed to screen the differentially expressed miRNAs (DEMs) in esophageal cancer and explore the pathogenesis of esophageal cancer along with functions and pathways of the target genes.


METHODS
miRNA high-throughput sequencing data were downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), then the DEMs underwent principal component analysis (PCA) based on their expression value. Following that, TargetScan software was used to predict the target genes, and enrichment analysis and pathway annotation of these target genes were done by DAVID and KEGG, respectively. Finally, survival analysis between the DEMs and patient survival time was done, and the miRNAs with prediction potential were identified.


RESULTS
A total of 140 DEMs were obtained, 113 miRNAs were up-regulated including hsa-mir-153-2, hsa-mir-92a-1 and hsa-mir-182; while 27 miRNAs were down-regulated including hsa-mir comprising 29a, hsa-mir-100 and hsa-mir-139 and so on. Five miRNAs (hsa-mir-103-1, hsa-mir-18a, hsa-mir-324, hsa-mir-369 and hsa-mir-320b-2) with diagnostic and preventive potential were significantly correlated with survival time.


CONCLUSIONS
The crucial molecular targets such as p53 may provide great clinical value in treatment, as well to provide new ideas for esophageal cancer therapy. The target genes of miRNA were found to play key roles in protein phosphorylation, and the functions of the target genes during protein phosphorylation should be further studied to explore novel treatment of EC.
Department of Thoracic Surgery, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University, Harbin, Heilongjiang, China (mainland).
Jia-ying
JY
Zhao
Department of Thoracic Surgery, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University, Harbin, Heilongjiang, China (mainland).
Fei
F
Wang
Department of Thoracic Surgery, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University, Harbin, Heilongjiang, China (mainland).
Yi
Y
Li
Department of Thoracic Surgery, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University, Harbin, Heilongjiang, China (mainland).
Xing-bo
XB
Zhang
Department of Thoracic Surgery, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University, Harbin, Heilongjiang, China (mainland).
Lei
L
Yang
Department of Thoracic Surgery, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University, Harbin, Heilongjiang, China (mainland).
Wei
W
Wang
Department of Thoracic Surgery, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University, Harbin, Heilongjiang, China (mainland).
Hao
H
Xu
Department of Thoracic Surgery, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University, Harbin, Heilongjiang, China (mainland).
Da-zhong
DZ
Liu
Department of Thoracic Surgery, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University, Harbin, Heilongjiang, China (mainland).
Lin-you
LY
Zhang
D000368:Aged; D019295:Computational Biology; D004938:Esophageal Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000235:genetics* / Q000401:mortality; D005260:Female; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D015972:Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic; D006801:Humans; D053208:Kaplan-Meier Estimate; D008297:Male; D035683:MicroRNAs / Q000235:genetics*; D008875:Middle Aged; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D025341:Principal Component Analysis; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D012984:Software; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D015854:Up-Regulation
C544749:MIRN103 microRNA, human; C522576:MIRN18A microRNA, human; C572916:MIRN320 microRNA, human; C000599310:MIRN324 microRNA, human; C560308:MIRN369 microRNA, human; D035683:MicroRNAs