WALAILAK JOURNAL OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Volume 16, No. 05, Month MAY, Year 2019, Pages 295 - 306

Differential expression of mir-101 and mir-744 in nasopharyngeal carcinoma in pahang state of malaysia

Azmir AHMAD, Haziq Abdul WAHID, Wan Ishlah LEMAN, Noor Syamila OTHMAN, Azlina Abdul RAHMAN, Kahairi ABDULLAH, Siti Aesah Naznin MUHAMMAD, Mohd. Arifin KADERI

Abstract Download PDF

Previous study found that microRNA-101 (miR-101) and microRNA-744 (miR-744) were deregulated in head and neck cancers and were implicated in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) carcinogenesis. Thus, this study aimed to determine the expression of miR-101 and miR-744 in NPC and analyse the utility of these microRNAs (miRNAs) as diagnostic biomarkers. Total RNA was extracted from 31 NPC and 7 non-NPC control formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) samples. Complementary DNA (cDNA) was synthesized from the total RNA and proceeded with quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. Differential expression of miR-101 and miR-744 were calculated from quantification cycle (Cq) data using 2-ΔΔCq calculation. The performance of these miRNAs were calculated using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. The differential expression for miR-101 and miR-744 were -1.39 (p < 0.05) and 2.48 (p > 0.05), respectively, where the deregulations were consistent with the previous report. The area under curve for miR-101, miR-744 and combination of miR-101 and miR-744 were 0.654 (95 % CI: 0.465 - 0.844), 0.588 (95 % CI: 0.368 - 0.808) and 0.626 (95 % CI: 0.481 - 0.771), respectively. However, re-analysis using balanced sample size between NPC and non-NPC control group showed the value decreased to 0.653 (95 % CI: 0.347 - 0.959) for miR-101 but increased to 0.827 (95 % CI: 0.601 - 1.000) for miR-744 and 0.758 (95 % CI: 0.576 - 0.939) for the combination of miR-101 and miR-744, indicating the importance of having a balanced sample size. We have successfully determined the expression of miR-101 and miR-744 in NPC samples. We also demonstrated statistically the utility of these miRNAs as diagnostic biomarkers.

Keywords

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma, miR-101, miR-744, differential expression, diagnostic biomarker

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