Fluorescence-Based Codetection with Protein Markers Reveals Distinct Cellular Compartments for Altered MicroRNA Expression in Solid Tumors

摘要

MicroRNAs (miRNA) are a class of short noncoding regulatory RNA genes which act as posttranscriptional regulators of gene expression (1-3). By binding to the 3'-untranslated region of target mRNAs, the -21 to 23 nucleotide-long miRNAs could trigger translational downregulation and/or increased degradation of mRNA from target genes (4). The recent explosion of miRNA research in biomedical sciences, and particularly in cancer biology, attests to their perceived importance to human disease (5, 6). High-throughput expression profiling of RNA extracted from whole tissue biopsies has provided a short list of miRNAs that could serve as useful biomarkers for the early detection, diagnosis, and/or prognosis of different types of cancer (7). Low levels of let-7, miR-34, miR-126, and miR-145 and high levels of miR-21, miR-155, and miR-221 have been frequently reported in association with breast, colorectal, gastrointestinal, lung, pancreas, prostate, and/or thyroid cancer (7, 8)