MiR-137 expression in neuroblastoma: a role in clinical course and outcome.

Abstract

Aim.To investigate association of the miR-137 expression in neuroblastoma patients with clinical and biological characteristics of the tumor, and the relationship with survival rates. Methods. qRT-PCR, FISH. Results. Analysis of 61 primary diagnosed neuroblastoma samples revealed a significantly lower expression of miR-137 in patients with the higher risk prognostic factors including the MYCN amplification, onset age, disease stage and overexpression of he p53 antagonist MDM2. Although miR-137 is not an independent risk factor, its higher expression was significantly associated with both improved event-free survival (5 year: 50.4 % vs. 12.2 %) and overall survival (5 year: 46.9 % vs. 19.1 %), indicating a potential tumor suppressor role in neuroblastoma. Conclusion. We identified miR-137 as a new microRNA of potential importance for the neuroblastoma tumor biology. We demonstrated that miR-137 expression can be used as a biomarker to stratify the neuroblastoma patients according to the clinical course.

A multi-omics approach for biomarker discovery in neuroblastoma: a network-based framework

“…Overall, these results support the role of hsa-miR-137 in regulating pluripotency to differentiation states transition and its involvement in regulating apoptosis priming; its depletion is accompanied by developmental and tumor malformations 89 . A clinical analysis of 61 NB samples unraveled that hsa-miR-137 has a substantially lower expression with other higher prognostic factors, including high mouse/murine double minute 2 (Mdm-2) and MYCN amplification 90 . It targets histone demethylase, lysine-specific demethylase 1 mRNA in NB cells, activating multiple cellular processes that coincide with tumor suppression 91 .…”