AccScience Publishing / EJMO / Volume 8 / Issue 4 / DOI: 10.14744/ejmo.2024.21815
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Deregulation of microRNAs in Head and Neck Cancer Patients

Ishrat Mahjabeen1 Muhammad Junaid Iqbal1 Waheed Ur Rehman1 Azka Khalid1 Fatima Fayyaz1 Nadia Nazir1 Nayab Shabbir1 Maria Fazal Ul Haq1 Azhar Mehmood1 Mahmood Akhtar Kayani1
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1 Department of Biosciences, Cancer Genetics & Epigenetics Research Group, COMSATS University, Park Road Islamabad, Pakistan
EJMO 2024, 8(4), 450–459; https://doi.org/10.14744/ejmo.2024.21815
Submitted: 19 September 2024 | Accepted: 23 October 2024 | Published: 9 December 2024
© 2024 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution -Noncommercial 4.0 International License (CC-by the license) ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ )
Abstract

Objectives: Head and neck cancer is amongst the most prevalent malignancies in the world. The condition is also alarming in Pakistan. The main aim of the current research was to examine the expression profiling of microRNAs which are miR-105-5p, miR-10a-5p, miR-3658, miR-3160-3p, miR-4795-5p and miR-431-5p in HNC patients. Furthermore, the expression was also correlated with the clinical parameters, and prognostic significance was evaluated.

Methods: 300 HNC patients tumor samples and an equal number of healthy control samples were collected from differ- ent hospitals in Pakistan. The expression analysis of the selected microRNAs was carried out using real-time PCR (qPCR).    

Results: The results showed that the microRNAs were significantly deregulated in HNC patients compared to the con- trols. miR-105-5p (p<0.0004), miR-10a-5p (p<0.0001), miR-3658(p<0.003), miR-3160-3p (p<0.0001) were found signifi- cantly downregulated, while miR-4795-5p (p<0.0001) and miR-431-5p (p<0.0001) were found upregulated in HNC pa- tients as compared to controls. The Kaplan-Meier analysis showed that the deregulation of these microRNAs was found associated with decreased survival in HNC patients.

Conclusion: Our results suggested that the selected microRNAs were found deregulated in HNC patients and this deregulation was also found associated with significantly increased risk of HNC not only that it was also linked to de- creased survival of HNC patients.

Keywords
HNC
microRNAs
real-time PCR
expression analysis
survival analysis
Conflict of interest
The authors declare they have no competing interests.
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Eurasian Journal of Medicine and Oncology, Electronic ISSN: 2587-196X Print ISSN: 2587-2400, Published by AccScience Publishing