The miRNA Profile in Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma Patients with Secondary Myelodysplasia

Abstract

Myelodysplastic syndromes are a group of clonal diseases of hematopoietic stem cells and are characterized by multilineage dysplasia, ineffective hematopoiesis, peripheral blood cytopenias, genetic instability and a risk of transformation to acute myeloid leukemia. Some patients with non-Hodgkin lymphomas (NHLs) may have developed secondary myelodysplasia before therapy. Bone marrow (BM) hematopoiesis is regulated by a spectrum of epigenetic factors, among which microRNAs (miRNAs) are special. The aim of this work is to profile miRNA expression in BM cells in untreated NHL patients with secondary myelodysplasia. A comparative analysis of miRNA expression levels between the NHL and non-cancer blood disorders samples revealed that let-7a-5p was upregulated, and miR-26a-5p, miR-199b-5p, miR-145-5p and miR-150-5p were downregulated in NHL with myelodysplasia (p < 0.05). We for the first time developed a profile of miRNA expression in BM samples in untreated NHL patients with secondary myelodysplasia. It can be assumed that the differential diagnosis for blood cancers and secondary BM conditions based on miRNA expression profiles will improve the accuracy and relevance of the early diagnosis of cancerous and precancerous lesions in BM.

Selection of reference genes for quantitative analysis of microRNA expression in three different types of cancer

“…Normally, only about 200 miRNAs are expressed at sufficiently high levels, with some of them varying between the samples and the others being invariant. The authors of all publications about NanoString-based miRNA quantification data are largely interested in finding the most significant differences in miRNA expression levels between the groups [ 22 , 23 ]. By contrast, we wanted to find those miRNAs that have stable expression in all groups.…”

“…In our previous work, when we were deciding on the reference gene for analysis of miRNA expression levels in bone marrow samples, we used NanoString nCounter and chose the geometric mean of the expression levels of miR-378 and miR-191. Analysis of miRNA quantification data obtained with NanoString nCounter showed that the abundance of these miRNAs in the samples was well above background values, but these miRNAs had the least variable expression across the groups [ 22 ].…”

MicroRNAs in the Myelodysplastic Syndrome

“…Molecular genetic markers are gradually becoming more and more popular in describing MDS; in addition, they discriminate MDS from other BM conditions [ 109 , 110 , 111 , 112 , 113 ]. As described above, unique miRNA expression profiles are characteristic of different MDS subtypes.…”

Selection of reference genes for quantitative analysis of microRNA expression in three cancers

“…NanoString-based miRNA quantification data are largely interested in finding the most significant differences in miRNA expression levels between the groups [22,23]. By contrast, we wanted to find those miRNAs that have stable expression in all groups.…”