Potential plasma microRNAs signature miR-190b-5p, miR-215-5p and miR-527 as non-invasive biomarkers for prostate cancer

Abstract

Background

Prostate cancer (PCa) is the most prevalent (20%) pathological cancer among males globally. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short (19–22 nucleotide), conserved, noncoding molecules that regulate post-transcriptional processes either by repressing or degrading mRNA or by translation inhibition binding to complementary sites on mRNA. The goal of this study was to find out whether differentially expressed microRNA (DEM) could be used as a potential marker in the prognosis and diagnosis of PCa.

Methodology

The miRNAs profiling was done both from plasma and tissue samples of the same PCa patient (n = 3) by real-time quantitative PCR (qRT-PCR) and compared with BPH (benign prostatic hyperplasia) patients (n = 3) as controls and further validation of selected miRNAs.

Results

We found 55 significant overexpressed DEMs, 44 significant underexpressed DEMs in plasma and 6 significant overexpressed DEMs, 27 significant underexpressed DEMs in tissue compared between PCa and BPH. Furthermore, there were eight miRNAs namely miR-190b, miR-215, miR-300, miR-329, miR-504, miR-525-3p, miR-527, miR-548a-3p found to be significantly differentially expressed in plasma and tissue samples via profiling, however only three showed concordant expression. After validation, miR-190b-5p were shown to be significantly downexpressed with fold changes of 0.4177 (p value – 0.0072) and 0.7264 (p value – 0.0143) in plasma and tissue samples, respectively. The expression of miR-215-5p was shown to be significantly overexpressed with fold change of 1.820 (p – 0.0016) and 1.476 (p – 0.0407) in plasma and tissue samples, respectively. Furthermore, miR-527 was shown to be significantly downexpressed with fold changes of 0.6018 (p – 0.0095) and 0.6917 (p – 0.0155) in plasma and tissue samples, respectively.

Conclusion

According to our findings, plasma miR-190b-5p, miR-215-5p, miR-527 levels alteration is consistently linked with PCa tissue. For establishing significant miRNAs as biomarkers, additional research of a larger population is needed.

Keywords:

• Prostate cancer
• microRNA
• differentially expressed miRNA
• plasma
• ROC

Acknowledgment

We would like to acknowledge to Biorepository, RGCIRC, New Delhi for the patient’s samples. We would like to thank the patients and their family members too.

Authors’ contributions

M.B. conceptualised the study. M.M.K. wrote original draft. M.M.K. did Data curation, Formal analysis, Methodology, Validation. M.M.K. did the investigation & resources. Critical evaluation of the manuscript, M.B. & M.M.K. did review & editing. M.S. and M.B. were jointly supervised the study. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Ethical approval statement

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards (Approval no. Res/SCM/31/2018/109).

Funding

The ‘Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)’ has generously supported MMK financially. The National Institute of Cancer Prevention and Research (ICMR-NICPR) provided infrastructure to M.B. for this study.