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Updated: Apr 6, 2026
miRNA Expression Analyses in Prostate Cancer Clinical Tissues
Published on: September 8, 2015
Construction of therapeutically relevant human prostate epithelial fate map by utilising miRNA and mRNA microarray
Jayant K Rane1, Antti Ylipää2, Rachel Adamson1
1Department of Biology, YCR Cancer Research Unit, University of York, York YO10 5DD, North Yorkshire, UK.
Background:
Objective identification of key miRNAs from transcriptomic data is difficult owing to the inherent inconsistencies within miRNA target-prediction algorithms and the promiscuous nature of miRNA-mRNA target relationship.
Methods:
An integrated database of miRNAs and their 'relevant' mRNA targets was generated from validated miRNA and mRNA microarray data sets generated from patient-derived prostate epithelial normal and cancer stem-like cells (SCs) and committed basal (CB) cells. The effect of miR-542-5p inhibition was studied to provide proof-of-principle for database utility.
Results:
Integration of miRNA-mRNA databases showed that signalling pathways and processes can be regulated by a single or relatively few miRNAs, for example, DNA repair/Notch pathway by miR-542-5p, P=0.008. Inhibition of miR-542-5p in CB cells (thereby achieving miR-542-5p expression levels similar to SCs) promoted efficient DNA repair and activated expression of Notch reporters, HES1 and Survivin, without inducing dedifferentiation into SCs.
Conclusions:
Our novel framework impartially identifies therapeutically relevant miRNA candidates from transcriptomic data sets.
