Year: 2016
Type: dissertation
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Colorectal Cancer (CRC) is one of the leading causes of cancer related deaths in the western world, and metastatic progression is the dominating cause of mortality.The primary site of CRC metastasis is the liver, followed by the lungs and peritoneal cavity, and prognosis for patients with metastatic CRC (mCRC) is poor, with only 10 % five-year survival.Although much is known about progression and metastasis of CRC; how primary CRC (pCRC) differs from mCRC on the molecular level are incompletely understood.This is important for our understanding of the disease, but also could have significant implications with respect to detection and treatment of CRC derived liver metastases.On numerous occasions microRNAs have been shown to be key elements in cancer progression and are candidate biomarkers detectable in blood.However, recent reports on mCRC failed to identify microRNA signatures of metastatic progression.To address this, a small RNA sequencing approach was used focusing on primary tumors and a set of liver metastases.Further, the highly-curated microRNA reference MirGeneDB.orgwas used to ensure that only bona fide microRNAs were studied.Although global miRNA expression was not distinguishable between primary tumor and colorectal derived liver metastasis, a number of individual miRNAs were significantly different between pCRC and mCRC of the liver.Surprisingly, Mir-339-3p and Mir-1247-5p were validated in a meta-analysis of published data that hadn't reported them.Specific isoforms (isomiRs) were also found to be differentially expressed.This study underlines the importance of using high quality microRNA reference dataset, and lays the foundation for more in-depth investigations of miRNA role in this deadly disease.
Author: Eirik Høye
Language: English
Subfield: Cancer Research
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2606688744