Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2019 Sep 20;39(9):BSR20190989.
doi: 10.1042/BSR20190989. Print 2019 Sep 30.

Bioinformatics analysis of circulating miRNAs related to cancer following spinal cord injury

Elisangela C P Lopes  1 , Layde R Paim  1 , José R Matos-Souza  1 , Décio R Calegari  2 , José I Gorla  3 , Alberto Cliquet Jr  4   5 , Carmen S P Lima  1 , John F McDonald  6 , Wilson Nadruz Jr  1 , Roberto Schreiber  7
Affiliations

Bioinformatics analysis of circulating miRNAs related to cancer following spinal cord injury

Elisangela C P Lopes et al. Biosci Rep. .

Abstract

Patients with spinal cord injury (SCI) have an increased risk of developing esophageal, bladder and hematologic malignancies compared with the normal population. In the present study, we aimed to identify, through in silico analysis, miRNAs and their target genes related to the three most frequent types of cancer in individuals with SCI. In a previous study, we reported a pattern of expression of miRNAs in 17 sedentary SCI males compared with 22 healthy able-bodied males by TaqMan OpenArray. This list of miRNAs deregulated in SCI patients was uploaded to miRWALK2.0 to predict the target genes and pathways of selected miRNAs. We used Cytoscape software to construct the network displaying the miRNAs and their gene targets. Among the down-regulated miRNAs in SCI, 21, 19 and 20 miRNAs were potentially associated with hematological, bladder and esophageal cancer, respectively, and three target genes (TP53, CCND1 and KRAS) were common to all three types of cancer. The three up-regulated miRNAs were potentially targeted by 18, 15 and 10 genes associated with all three types of cancer. Our current bioinformatics analysis suggests the potential influence of several miRNAs on the development of cancer in SCI. In general, these data may provide novel information regarding potential molecular mechanisms involved in the development of cancer among individuals with SCI. Further studies aiming at understanding how miRNAs contribute to the development of the major cancers that affect patients after SCI may help elucidate the role of these molecules in the pathophysiology of the disease.

Keywords: Spinal cord injury; cancer; miRNAs.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that there are no competing interests associated with the manuscript.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Regulatory network of down-regulated miRNAs in SCI individuals and target genes associated with cancer (bladder, esophageal and hematologic malignancies)
Yellow ellipse nodes represent differentially expressed miRNAs. Blue ellipse nodes represent target genes.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Combination of regulatory network of down-regulated miRNAs in SCI individuals and target genes associated with all studied cancers (bladder, esophageal and hematologic malignancies)
Yellow ellipse nodes represent differentially expressed miRNAs. Blue ellipse nodes represent target genes. The green nodes represent the target genes common to the three types of cancer.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Regulatory network of up-regulated miRNAs in SCI individuals and targets genes associated with cancer (bladder, esophageal and hematologic malignancies)
Yellow ellipse nodes represent differentially expressed miRNAs. Blue ellipse nodes represent targets genes.
Figure 4
Figure 4. Combination of regulatory network of up-regulated miRNAs in SCI individuals and targets genes associated with all of cancer (bladder, esophageal and hematologic malignancies)
Yellow ellipse nodes represent differentially expressed miRNAs. Blue ellipse nodes represent targets genes. The red nodes represent the target genes common to the three types of cancer.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. (2014) National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center. Spinal cord injury: facts and figures at a glance. Birmingham,AL:University of Alabama at Birmingham. https://www.nscisc.uab.edu/reports.aspx
    1. Kao C.H., Sun L.M., Chen Y.S., Lin C.L., Liang J.A., Kao C.H.. et al. (2016) Risk of nongenitourinary cancers in patients with spinal cord injury: a population- based cohort study. Medicine (Baltimore) 95, e2462 10.1097/MD.0000000000002462 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Kalisvaart J.F., Katsumi H.K., Ronningen L.D. and Hovey R.M. (2010) Bladder cancer in spinal cord injury patients. Spinal Cord 48, 257–261 10.1038/sc.2009.118 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Cortez M.A., Bueso-Ramos C., Ferdin J., Lopez-Berestein G., Sood A.K. and Calin G.A. (2011) MicroRNAs in body fluids–the mix of hormones and biomarkers. Nat. Rev. Clin. Oncol. 8, 467–477 10.1038/nrclinonc.2011.76 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. A1 Esquela-Kerscher and FJ. Slack (2006) Oncomirs - microRNAs with a role in cancer. Nat. Rev. Cancer 6, 259–269 10.1038/nrc1840 - DOI - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms