Document Type : Original Article

Authors

• Niloofar JAHANGIR SOOLTANI ¹
• Hossein Pakzad ²
• Mohammad Ali Saremi ³

¹ Department of Medical Biotechnology, National Institute of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, Tehran, Iran.

² Department of biology, Tehran-east branch, Islamic azad university, Tehran, Iran

³ Personalized Medicine Research Center of AmitisGen, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Lung cancer is still the most common cancer worldwide in terms of the number of newly diagnosed cases and mortality rate. The expression of miR-146a was reduced in mesenchymal-like lung cancer cell lines. The overexpression of miR-146a induced a marked reduction of the mesenchymal marker and increase in the epithelial marker in lung cancer cell lines. The current study investigated the association of miR-146a genotypes and lung susceptibility in a Tehran population to determine the visibility of using RFLP-PCR genotype. The results revealed a significantly higher frequency of miR-146a CG and CC genotypes (p =0.01 and p=0.008, respectively) in patients compared with the control group. Those with the miR-146a GC and CC genotypes had an increased risk for developing lung cancer (OR=1.9; 95% CI: 1.1-3.3 and OR=4.1; 95% CI: 1.5-12.3, respectively). Moreover, the frequency rates of miR-146a CC genotype and C allele were significantly higher in patients than in the controls (p =0.006 and p=0.000, respectively).

Keywords

• Lung cancer
• MicroRNA
• RFLP-PCR genotype
• epithelial-mesenchymal transition