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Identification of miRNAs Associated with Gene Regulation in Multiple Myeloma
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miRNA expression was quantified by Quantitative Real-Time PCR. Gene expression and genome profiling data were generated on Affymetrix oligonucleotide microarrays. Significant Analysis of Microarrays algorithm was used to investigate differentially expressed transcripts. Conventional statistics were used to test correlations for significance. Public libraries were queried to predict putative miRNA targets.
Transcripts were identified that were specific to six miRNA host genes (
CCPG1, GULP1, EVL, TACSTD1, MEST, and TNIK) whose average changes in expression varied at least 2-fold from the mean of the examined dataset. Evaluation of the expression levels of the corresponding intronic miRNAs identified a significant correlation between the expression levels of MEST, EVL, and GULP1 and those of the corresponding miRNAs miR-335, miR-342-3p, and miR-561, respectively.Genomewide profiling of the 20 HMCLs indicated that the increased expression of the three host genes and their corresponding intronic miRNAs was not correlated with local copy number variations.
Notably, miRNAs and their host genes were overexpressed in a fraction of primary tumors with respect to normal plasma cells; however, this finding was not correlated with known molecular myeloma groups. The predicted putative miRNA targets and the transcriptional profiles associated with the primary tumors suggest that MEST/miR-335 and EVL/miR-342-3p may play a role in plasma cell homing and/or interactions with the bone marrow microenvironment.
The data supports the idea that intronic miRNAs and their host genes are regulated dependently, and may contribute to the understanding of their biological roles in cancer. To teh authors knowledge, this is the first evidence of deregulated miRNA expression in MM, providing insights that may lead to the identification of new biomarkers and altered molecular pathways of the disease.
Original article: Ronchetti et al BMC Medical Genomics 2008, 1:37
