MiRNA-Based Inspired Approach in Diagnosis of Prostate Cancer

Abstract

Prostate cancer is one of the most encountered cancer diseases in men worldwide and in consequence it requires the improvement of therapeutic strategies. For the clinical diagnosis, the standard approach is represented by solid biopsy. From a surgical point of view, this technique represents an invasive procedure that may imply several postoperative complications. To overcome these impediments, many trends are focusing on developing liquid biopsy assays and on implementing them in clinical practice. Liquid samples (blood, urine) are rich in analytes, especially in transcriptomic information provided by genetic markers. Additionally, molecular characterization regarding microRNAs content reveals outstanding prospects in understanding cancer progression mechanisms. Moreover, these analytes have great potential for prostate cancer early detection, more accurate prostate cancer staging and also for decision making respecting therapy schemes. However, there are still questionable topics and more research is needed to standardize liquid biopsy-based techniques.

Keywords: Gleason score; biofluids; liquid biopsy; microRNAs; prostate cancer.

Figure 1

Prostate cancer risk groups classification for localized tumors, referring to biochemical recurrence according to European Association of Urology (EAU) Guidelines (2019).

Figure 2

Schematic representation of the principles and main particularities of both procedures used in prostate cancer (PCa) diagnosis.

Figure 3

MiRNAs expression level in PCa tissue compared with normal adjacent tissue (The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database). All bar graphs are displayed as mean ± SEM and the p-values were evaluated by unpaired t test (ns > 0.05, * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001, **** p < 0.0001).

Figure 4

Representation of common miRNAs with value of potential early diagnosis biomarkers, found in solid and liquid biopsy samples according to the TCGA database and the literature.