Molecular Landscape of the Epithelial–Mesenchymal Transition in Endometrioid Endometrial Cancer

Modern diagnostics are based on molecular analysis and have been focused on searching for new molecular markers to use in diagnostics. Included in this has been the search for the correlation between gene expression in tissue samples and liquid biological materials. The aim of this study was to eval...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Marcin Opławski, Robert Nowakowski, Agata Średnicka, Dominika Ochnik, Beniamin Oskar Grabarek, Dariusz Boroń
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2021-04-01
Series:Journal of Clinical Medicine
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Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0383/10/7/1520
Description
Summary:Modern diagnostics are based on molecular analysis and have been focused on searching for new molecular markers to use in diagnostics. Included in this has been the search for the correlation between gene expression in tissue samples and liquid biological materials. The aim of this study was to evaluate the differences in the expression profile of messenger RNA (mRNA) and micro-RNA (miRNA) related to the epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) in different grades of endometrial cancer (G1–G3), in order to select the most promising molecular markers. The study material consisted of tissue samples and whole blood collected from 30 patients with endometrial cancer (study group; G1 = 15; G2 = 8; G3 = 7) and 30 without neoplastic changes (control group). The molecular analysis included the use of the microarray technique and RTqPCR. Microarray analysis indicated the following number of mRNA differentiating the endometrial cancer samples from the control (tissue/blood): G1 vs. C = 21/18 mRNAs, G2 vs. C = 19/14 mRNAs, and G3 vs. C = 10/9 mRNAs. The common genes for the tissue and blood samples (Fold Change; FC > 3.0) were G1 vs. C: <i>TGFB1</i>, <i>WNT5A</i>, <i>TGFB2</i>, and <i>NOTCH1</i>; G2 vs. C: <i>BCL2L</i>, <i>SOX9</i>, <i>BAMBI</i>, and <i>SMAD4</i>; G3 vs. C <i>STAT1</i> and <i>TGFB1</i>. In addition, mRNA <i>TGFB1</i>, <i>NOTCH1</i>, and <i>BCL2L</i> are common for all grades of endometrial cancer. The analysis showed that miR-144, miR-106a, and miR-30d are most strongly associated with EMT, making them potential diagnostic markers.
ISSN:2077-0383