Molecular and Genetic Medicine

MicroRNA Expression in Low- and High-Grade Gliomas in Pediatric Patients and Correlation with Matrix Metalloproteinase Expression

Abstract

Yehia D, Fikry M, Gozlan S, Taha H and Tantawy M

Study background: Over the past years, the number of patients diagnosed with glioma has increased. Glioma is the most widespread pediatric malignancy of the brain and a high-grade tumor is associated with a dismal prognosis. Members of the matrix metalloproteases (MMP) enzyme family (especially MMP-2 and MMP-play an important role in the degradation of the extracellular matrix (ECM) a requirement for disease progression, in addition to the miRNAs play a vital role in regulating “cancer hallmarks”.
Aim: Our aim in this study was to detect the expression level of MMP2 and MMP9 in high-grade glioma and low-grade glioma to find the differential expression in two different subtypes and to find the correlation of MMP and progression of disease and to identify any relationship between miRNA and MMP expression in gliomas.
Methods and finding: We determined the expression of all the miRNAs and mRNAs for the (MMP2 and MMP9) in over 20 high grade glioma (HGG) and 20 low grade glioma (LGG) in paraffin-embedded (FFPE) using Quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR).
Result: Seven miRNAs showed high expression specifically in HGG compared to LGG with significant differential expression (p-value ≤ 0.05).
Conclusion: The mRNA for the MMP-2 and MMP-9 were highly expressed in HGG than in LGG, although the difference did not reach the statistical significance. The main limitations of this study are the small sample size of the patients and further work is needed to investigate the relativeness of our work to the clinical side.