Identification of potential biomarkers for clear cell renal cell carcinoma based on microRNA-mRNA pathway relationships.

Background: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play important roles in tumor genesis. miRNA dysregulation has been widely studied and demonstrated in clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC). Materials and Methods: We applied a newly proposed method for selecting miRNAs that discriminate between healthy controls and cancers. We initially extracted different miRNAs and mRNAs and then selected miRNA-mRNA dysregulation pairs. The pathways that involved mRNAs were acquired according to the functional enrichment. We integrated the miRNAs, mRNAs, and pathways and constructed the miRNA-mRNA pathway relationships based on the derived significant miRNAs. Results: We acquired 566 antiregulated miRNA-mRNA pairs including 56 miRNAs and 485 mRNAs. Three significant pathways related to ccRCC, namely, arginine and proline metabolism, aldosterone-regulated sodium reabsorption, and oxidative phosphorylation, were observed. Based on the miRNA-mRNA pathway relationships, five significant miRNAs were identified as potential biomarkers: hsa-miR-425, hsa-miR-136, hsa-miR-335, hsa-miR-340, and hsa-miR-320d. Conclusion: This integrative network approach revealed important miRNAs in the ccRCC that can identify specific disease biomarkers, which can be used as targets for cancer treatment.