MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small, non-coding RNAs that are involved in various cellular processes. Many studies have shown that miRNAs are dysregulated in various types of cancer. In Malaysia, there are no published studies on miRNA expression profile for colorectal cancer, which is among the most common cancer here and other parts of the world. Next-generation sequencing platform was introduced in recent years and has revolutionized the biomedical research settings. In this study, we performed small RNA sequencing on Illumina HiSeq 2000 platform and found that 22 miRNAs were significantly differential expressed between cancer and normal tissues. Further validation on qRT-PCR on 5 of the miRNAs selected showed 3 of them were up-regulated (hsa-miR-106a, hsa-miR-135b, hsa-miR-21) while 2 were down-regulated (hsa-miR1, hsa-miR-504). These findings may lead to a simple profiling method to distinguish the risk of imdividuals in developing colorectal cancer.
Small RNA sequencing and differential expression of miRNAs in colorectal cancer