Background: Epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) is a lethal disease due to late diagnosis and lack of effective screening methods. MicroRNA (miR/miRNA) plays an important role in ovarian carcinogenesis and may serve as a non-invasive biomarker for EOC. This study aimed to assess miR-141 expression in the blood plasma of patients with EOC and healthy subjects and determine its association with the clinical stage of EOC. Methods: This cross-sectional study used blood plasma from 30 newly diagnosed untreated patients with EOC and 25 healthy subjects. The mean age was 47.73 (SD = 10.29) years for EOC and 44.48 (SD = 16.14) years for healthy subject. The total RNA was isolated from blood plasma and reversed transcribed to obtain cDNA. The expression of miR-141 was measured by real- time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR), and calculated using 2-∆∆Ct methods. The data were analysed using Mann-Whitney test. Results: The expression of miR-141 was upregulated 8.41 fold in the blood plasma of EOC patients compared to healthy controls (P < 0.001). Expression of miR-141 in the advanced stage was upregulated 4.2 fold compared to the early stage (P < 0.001). Conclusion: The miR-141 was upregulated in the blood plasma of EOC and associated with an advanced stage of disease, suggesting it has potential as a biomarker for EOC detection.

Ovarian cancer is a lethal disease. One of the problems faced by patients with ovarian cancer is the lack of symptoms in its early stages, which results in it only being detected when it is at an advanced stage. Therefore, there is an urgent need for biomarkers that can predict ovarian cancer precisely. The purpose of this study was to determine the expression of microRNA-21 as a predictive biomarker candidate in both early- and advanced-stage ovarian cancer. This was a cross-sectional study using the blood plasma of 21 healthy control subjects and 37 blood plasma samples from patients with ovarian cancer. Blood plasmas were collected, from which the RNA was isolated. Based on the RNA, the cDNA was synthesized and run through qPCR, the results of which were analyzed using the Livak method. The results showed an upregulation of microRNA-21 in the advanced stage by 2.14 fold compared with the early stage, and 6.13 fold compared with the healthy controls (p < 0.05). The upregulation of microRNA-21 in early-stage ovarian cancer was 2.86 fold compared with the healthy control subjects (p < 0.05). In addition, there was an increase in the expression of microRNA-21 in ovarian cancer by 4.14 fold compared with the healthy controls (p < 0.05). Based on these results, it can be concluded that the expression of microRNA 21 upregulated with the severity of the disease.

No abstract

No abstract

Ovarian cancer carries high burden of disease, and its mortality rate comprises half the reported death cases in gynecological malignancy. Ovarian cancer is the second most common cancer in women, following cervical cancer. The process of ovarian carcinogenesis occurs at the molecular level and is regulated by microRNA. Previous in-silico research revealed that microRNA-155 (miRNA-155) targets the HIF1A mRNA, the regulator gene in hypoxia. HIF1A is involved in various hallmarks of cancer, and also thought to play roles in Warburg effect as well as genetic transcription factors in angiogenesis. Regulation of miRNA-155 and HIF1A is thought to be involved in the process of ovarian cancer progression, thus possess the potential as minimally-invasive prognostic biomarker. This study aimed to determine the differences expression of the miRNA-155 and HIF1A in the blood plasma collected from both early-and advanced-stage ovarian cancer patients. The blood plasma samples were taken from 32 early-stage ovarian cancer patients and 20 advanced-stage patients admitted to RSUP Dr. Sardjito. Total RNA was isolated from blood plasma, then cDNA synthesis was performed to obtain the cDNA. The expression of miRNA-155 and HIF1A were calculated using qPCR, and its results were analyzed using Biorad CFX Manager Software. The analysis revealed that the expression of miRNA-155 were 2.18 folds lower (p-value = 0.018) in plasma of advanced-stage ovarian cancer patients compared to those at early stage. The expression of HIF1A were 2.46 folds higher (p-value = 0.039) in plasma of advancedstage patients compared to those at early stage, and both results are statistically significant (p value ≤ 0.05). In conclusion, our study showed that miRNA-155 expression is downregulated in advanced-stage ovarian cancer compared to earlystage, and followed by upregulation of mRNA expression in HIF1A.