microRNA profile of endometrial cancer from Indian patients-Identification of potential biomarkers for prognosis

Endometrial cancer is one of the major cancers in women throughout the world. If diagnosed early, these cancers are treatable and the prognosis is usually good. However, one major problem in treating endometrial cancer is accurate diagnosis and staging. Till date, the choice method for diagnosis and staging is histopathology. Although there are few molecular markers identified, they are not always sufficient in making accurate diagnosis and deciding on therapeutic strategy. As a result, very often patients are under treated or over treated. In this study, our group has profiled microRNAs (miRNA) from Indian patients using NGS-based approach. We have identified differentially expressed microRNAs in endometrial cancer. These microRNAs have also been compared to data from TCGA (The Cancer Genome Atlas), which represent other populations and also correlated to relevance in overall survival. Using in-silico approaches, mRNA targets of the miRNAs have been predicted. After comparing with TCGA, we have identified 16 miRNA-mRNA pairs which could be potential prognostic biomarkers for endometrial cancer. This is the first miRNA profiling report from Indian cohort and one of the very few studies which have identified potential biomarkers of prognosis in endometrial cancer.