Kumar Subramanian, Keerthana Ranganathan, Pazhanimuthu Annamalai, Perumal Pachiappan
Department of Biotechnology, Periyar University, Periyar Palkalai Nagar, Salem 636 011, Tamil Nadu, India.
Indian J Biochem Biophys. 2013 Jun;50(3):210-4.
Breast cancer is the second most common malignant disease affecting Indian women and is the leading cause of cancer-related mortality. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are remarkably stable in blood, which makes them novel and promising biomarkers for cancer detection and diagnosis. In this study, we investigated whether expression levels of circulating specific miRNAs, such as microRNA-21 (miR-21) and microRNA-146a (miR-146a) could be used as potential biomarkers in plasma of breast cancer patients and healthy individuals. We compared the expression levels of breast cancer associated specific miRNA--miR-21 and miR-146a in plasma samples of histopathologically reported 14 patients (aged 35-61 yrs) with breast cancer and an additional 8 healthy volunteers (aged 35-54 yrs). The miRNA expression level was determined by TaqMan quantitative PCR (qPCR) assay. The miRNA expression level of each sample was normalized to that of miR-16 as reference and expressed as relative expression (2(deltaCt)). Our results showed that the circulating level of miR-21 and miR-146a were significantly higher in plasma samples of breast cancer patients, when compared to those of healthy controls (p < 0.0004 and p < 0.005, respectively). Thus, analyzing expression of miR-21 and miR-146a from plasma samples of breast cancer patients might be useful in the diagnosis of breast cancer. However, further studies with larger number of patients and control individuals are needed to confirm the results.
乳腺癌是影响印度女性的第二大常见恶性疾病，也是癌症相关死亡的主要原因。微小RNA（miRNA）在血液中非常稳定，这使其成为癌症检测和诊断的新型且有前景的生物标志物。在本研究中，我们调查了循环特异性miRNA（如微小RNA-21（miR-21）和微小RNA-146a（miR-146a））的表达水平是否可作为乳腺癌患者和健康个体血浆中的潜在生物标志物。我们比较了14例经组织病理学报告确诊为乳腺癌的患者（年龄35 - 61岁）和另外8名健康志愿者（年龄35 - 54岁）血浆样本中与乳腺癌相关的特异性miRNA——miR-21和miR-146a的表达水平。通过TaqMan定量PCR（qPCR）测定法确定miRNA表达水平。将每个样本的miRNA表达水平以miR-16作为参照进行标准化，并表示为相对表达量（2（ΔCt））。我们的结果显示，与健康对照相比，乳腺癌患者血浆样本中miR-21和miR-146a的循环水平显著更高（分别为p < 0.0004和p < 0.005）。因此，分析乳腺癌患者血浆样本中miR-21和miR-146a的表达可能有助于乳腺癌的诊断。然而，需要更多患者和对照个体的进一步研究来证实该结果。
