Utilization of Next Generation Sequencing in Analysis of Circulating MicroRNAs as Predictive Biomarkers for Patients...

MicroRNAs (miRNA) are short non-coding RNAs involved in post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression. MiRNAs are essential regulators of both physiological processes as of pathogeneses of many diseases, and their dysregulation was observed in many malignancies including rectal cancer. Circulating miRNAs presented in blood plasma could be potential candidates for non-invasive predictive biomarkers of the response of patients with locally advanced rectal cancer to chemoradiotherapy. Presented study aims to evaluate the potential of next-generation sequencing in the analysis of circulating miRNAs.

MiRNA expression profiles were done using samples of RNA isolated from blood plasma collected during TNM restaging and paired samples collected before initiation of neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy. Sequencing libraries were prepared using kit which implements universal molecular indices that help to sensitively filter biological bias during data analysis. Sequencing data were processed by multidimensional biostatistical approaches.

We identified specific miRNA profile enabling to distinguish the patients accordingly to their response to chemoradiotherapy. This work was supported by the Czech Ministry of Health grant No. 16-31765A. The authors declare they have no potential confl icts of interest concerning drugs, products, or services used in the study. The Editorial Board declares that the manuscript met the ICMJE recommendation for biomedical papers. Submitted: 22. 2. 2019 Accepted: 27. 2. 2019.