Plasmatic miR-210, miR-221 and miR-1233 profile: Potential liquid biopsies candidates for renal cell carcinoma

// Francisca Dias 1, 2, 3 , Ana Luisa Teixeira 1, 2 , Marta Ferreira 4 , Barbara Adem 1, 5 , Nuno Bastos 1, 5 , Joana Vieira 6 , Mara Fernandes 1, 2, 5 , Maria Ines Sequeira 4 , Joaquina Mauricio 4 , Francisco Lobo 7 , Antonio Morais 7 , Jorge Oliveira 7 , Klaas Kok 8 and Rui Medeiros 1, 2, 5, 9 1 Molecular Oncology and Viral Pathology Group, IPO-Porto Research Center (CI-IPOP), Portuguese Oncology Institute of Porto (IPO-Porto), Porto, Portugal 2 Research Department, LPCC- Portuguese League Against Cancer (NRNorte), Porto, Portugal 3 ICBAS, Abel Salazar Institute for the Biomedical Sciences, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal 4 Medical Oncology Department of the Portuguese Oncology Institute of Porto (IPO-Porto), Porto, Portugal 5 FMUP, Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal 6 Genetics Department of the Portuguese Oncology Institute of Porto (IPO-Porto), Porto, Portugal 7 Urology Department of the Portuguese Oncology Institute of Porto (IPO-Porto), Porto, Portugal 8 Department of Genetics, University Medical Center, Groningen, The Netherlands 9 CEBIMED, Faculty of Health Sciences, Fernando Pessoa University, Porto, Portugal Correspondence to: Ana Luisa Teixeira, email: ana.luisa.teixeira@ipoporto.min-saude.pt Rui Medeiros, email: ruimedei@ipoporto.min-saude.pt Keywords: circulating miRNAs, renal cell carcinoma, prognostic biomarkers Received: January 12, 2017      Accepted: September 25, 2017      Published: October 11, 2017 ABSTRACT Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) represents a challenge for clinicians since the nonexistence of screening and monitoring tests contributes to the fact that one-third of patients are diagnosed with metastatic disease and 20–40% of the remaining patients will also develop metastasis. Modern medicine is now trying to establish circulating biomolecules as the gold standard of biomarkers. Among the molecules that can be released from tumor cells we can find microRNAs. The aim of this study was to evaluate the applicability of cancer-related miR-210, miR-218, miR-221 and miR-1233 as prognostic biomarkers for RCC. Patients with higher levels of miR-210, miR-221 and miR-1233 presented a higher risk of specific death by RCC and a lower cancer-specific survival. The addition of miR-210, miR-221 and miR-1233 plasma levels information improved the capacity to predict death by cancer in 8, 4% when compared to the current variables used by clinicians. We also verified that hypoxia stimulates the release of miR-210 and miR-1233 from HKC-8, RCC-FG2 and 786-O cell lines. These results support the addition of circulating microRNAs as prognostic biomarkers for RCC.