Differential MicroRNA Expression Profiles as Potential Biomarkers for Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma

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Y. Zhu^1,a#, J. Wang^2,b#, F. Wang³, Z. Yan³, G. Liu², Y. Ma^4,c, W. Zhu^5,d, Y. Li³, L. Xie³, A. V. Bazhin^6,e*, and X. Guo^3,f*

¹Department of Oncology, International Joint Laboratory for Cell Medical Engineering of Henan Province, Henan University Huaihe Hospital, Kaifeng, 475000 Henan, People’s Republic of China

²Department of Oncology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, 450014 Henan, People’s Republic of China

³Department of Preventive Medicine, Cell Signal Transduction Laboratory, Joint National Laboratory for Antibody Drug Engineering, Institute of Biomedical Informatics, Medical School, Henan University, Kaifeng, 475004 Henan, People’s Republic of China

⁴College of Pharmacy and Tianjin Key Laboratory of Molecular Drug Research, Nankai University, Haihe Education Park, 300353 Tianjin, People’s Republic of China

⁵Department of Anesthesia, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA

⁶Department of General, Visceral, and Transplantation Surgery, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, 81377 Munich, Germany

^# These authors contributed equally to this work.

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed.

Received December 4, 2018; Revised February 2, 2019; Accepted February 4, 2019

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Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) remains a clinical challenge due to its poor prognosis. Therefore, the early diagnosis of PDAC is extremely important for achieving a cure. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) could serve as a potential biomarker for the early detection and prognosis of PDAC. In this work we analyzed plasma samples from healthy persons and PDAC patients to assess differential miRNA expression profiles by next generation sequencing technology and bioinformatics analysis. In this way, 165 mature miRNAs were found to be significantly deregulated in the patient group, of which 75 and 90 mature miRNAs were up- and down-regulated compared with healthy individuals, respectively. Furthermore, 1029 novel miRNAs were identified. In conclusion, plasma miRNA expression profiles are different between healthy individuals and patients with PDAC. These data provide a possibility for use of miRNA as diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers of PDAC.

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KEY WORDS: pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, plasma miRNA, expression profiling

DOI: 10.1134/S0006297919050122

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