Journal of Molecular Biomarkers & Diagnosis

Association of Serum and Tumor Tissue microRNA Profile with Aggressiveness of Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma in an Iranian Population

Abstract

Sara Nazari, Ahmad Majd, Iraj Heydari, Mohammad Reza Mohajeri Tehrani and Reza Nekouian*

Objectives: Papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) is the most common malignancy of thyroid. We aimed to investigate the association of let-7f, miR-146b-5p, miR-34b, miR-16 and miR-877-5p expression in blood circulation and tumor with aggressiveness of PTC.

Methods: A total of 18 patients with aggressive PTC and 18 patients with non-aggressive PTC were studied. The microRNAs expressions were evaluated using real-time PCR. Fold changes (FC) of the miRs in aggressive PTC patients were calculated via calibration with mean of expression of the miRs in non-aggressive groups.

Results: MiR-16 showed significant up regulation in blood (FC=2.85; P=0.024), miR-34 showed significant down regulation in blood (FC=0.19; P<0.001) and tumor tissue (FC=0.19; P<0.001), miR-146 showed significant up regulation in blood (FC=48.10; P<0.001) and tumor tissue (FC=60.61; P<0.001), miR-877 showed significant down regulation in blood (FC=0.22; P<0.001), and let-7 showed significant down regulation in blood (FC=0.09; P<0.001) and tumor tissue (FC=0.13; P<0.001).

Conclusion: In general, our study in an Iranian population supported the previous results. Up regulation of miR-146 was associated with aggressiveness of PTC.