Thyroid Tumor: Investigating MicroRNA-21 Gene Suppression in FTC and FTA

The follicular thyroid carcinoma (FTC) and follicular thyroid adenoma (FTA) are malignant and benign thyroid neoplasms, respectively. MicroRNA (miRNA) expressions have been touted as an indicator for prognostic outcome in thyroid cancer. The study objective was to explore genes suppressed by miRNA-21-3p and miRNA-21-5p for potential therapeutic insights. Differentially expressed genes and their functional enrichment were obtained from 25 FTA and 27 FTC gene microarray dataset GSE82208 using R and Bioconductor tools. The miRNA target sites were obtained from miR-TarBase database. A unique gene list of differentially expressed FTC and FTA were entered into miR-TarBase database to obtain target genes for both miRNA-21-3p and miRNA-21-5p. The result showed that miRNA-21-3p and miRNA-21-5p downregulated TIMP3, MAT2A, TGFBR2, and PLAT gene in FTC and FTA leading to significant expression of acute phase-response to metallothionein, metal ions, and unfolded protein response (UPR). The computational analysis suggests that the suppression of miRNA-21-3p and miRNA-21-5p could be an intervention strategy for therapeutically targeting FTC and FTA treatments.