Prostate cancer (PCa) is the most common cause of cancer death among African men. The analysis of microRNAs (miRNAs) in plasma extracellular vesicles (EVs) can be utilized as a non-invasive tool for the diagnosis of PCa. In this study, we used small RNA sequencing to profile miRNAs cargo in plasma EVs from South African PCa patients. We evaluated the differential expression of miRNAs between low and high Gleason scores in the plasma EVs of South African patients and in the prostatic tissue from data available in the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) Data Portal. We identified 7 miRNAs differently expressed in both EVs and prostatic tissues. We evaluated their expression using qPCR in a larger cohort of 10 patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) and 24 patients with PCa. Here, we reported that the ratio between two of these miRNAs (i.e., miR-194-5p/miR-16-5p) showed a higher concentration in PCa compared to BPH and in metastatic PCa compared to localized PCa. We explored for the first time the profiling of miRNAs cargo in plasma EVs as a tool for the identification of putative markers in the South African population. Our finding indicated the ratio miR-194-5p/miR-16-5p as a non-invasive marker for the evaluation of PCa aggressiveness in this population.
前列腺癌是非洲男性最常见的癌症死亡原因。血浆细胞外囊泡中的微小RNA分析可作为前列腺癌无创诊断工具。本研究采用小RNA测序技术，对南非前列腺癌患者血浆细胞外囊泡中的miRNA进行表达谱分析。通过比较南非患者血浆细胞外囊泡样本及癌症基因组图谱数据库中前列腺组织样本，我们评估了低危与高危格里森评分患者之间的miRNA差异表达。共发现7种在细胞外囊泡和前列腺组织中均存在差异表达的miRNA。随后我们在更大规模队列（10例良性前列腺增生患者和24例前列腺癌患者）中使用qPCR技术验证其表达水平。研究首次揭示，两种miRNA（miR-194-5p/miR-16-5p）的比值在前列腺癌组显著高于良性前列腺增生组，且在转移性前列腺癌中高于局限性前列腺癌。本研究首次探索了血浆细胞外囊泡miRNA表达谱作为南非人群前列腺癌生物标志物筛查工具的潜力，结果表明miR-194-5p/miR-16-5p比值可作为评估该人群前列腺癌侵袭性的无创标志物。
肿瘤(癌症)患者之家