A pilot study on the expression of microRNAs resident on chromosome 21 in laser microdissected FFPE prostate adenocarcinoma samples

Vol. 56 No. 3, 2015

ROMANIAN JOURNAL of MORPHOLOGY and EMBRYOLOGY

Adrian Mihala, Andreea Anda Alexa, Corina Samoila, Alis Dema, Anda-Cornelia Vizitiu, Andrei Anghel, Liviu Tamas, Catalin Valer Marian, Ioan-Ovidiu Sirbu

The tremendous research effort of the last decades added a new, epigenetic layer of complexity to the already complex image of prostate cancer pathogenesis. Here we use quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) to investigate the expression of the microRNAs resident on chromosome 21 (miR-ch21) in laser capture microdissected (LCM) tissues from formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) archived, prostate adenocarcinoma samples. We show a strong, specific down-regulation of miR-ch21 in tumoral epithelia and stromae as compared to normal counterparts, results at odd with the current paradigm on the involvement of these microRNAs in prostate oncogenesis. By comparing this result with the expression of two well-known pluripotency associated microRNA, hsa-miR-372 and miR-373, we suggest that miR-ch21 down-regulation might be the result of specific silencing of miR genes mapped to chromosome 21. Further studies, of larger sample size are needed to confirm our preliminary data.

Corresponding author: Ioan-Ovidiu Sirbu, Associate Professor, MD, PhD; e-mail: ovidiu.sirbu@umft.ro; Catalin Valer Marian, Associate Professor, MD, PhD; e-mail: cmarian@umft.ro

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