Platelet microRNA bioinformatics analysis in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma

Purpose:To reveal platelet microRNAs(miRNAs) expression status and its potential clinical significance in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC) by bioinformatics analysis. Method: 5 patients (4 male, 1 female) with hepatocellular carcinoma, and 5 healthy individuals(3 male,2 female) as control from June 2019 to November 2019 were taken part in this cohort. The leukocyte—depleted platelets were prepared from the anticoagulated whole blood samples. The platelet RNA were extracted to construct miRNA libraries by using conventional gradient centrifugation, MACS and instructions of miRNeasy Mini Kit, performed data analysis and bioinformatics analysis after sequencing. Results: The DESeq2 package of R software was used to compare the gene expression level difference between the HCC group and the normal group. The cut-off criteria of differentially expressed miRNAs was |log2FC| >1 and p<0.05. Total 250 differentially expressed miRNAs were screened out, of which 111 miRNAs were down-regulated and 139 miRNAs were up-regulated. Gene Ontology(GO) analysis found that the differential miRNAs are involved in Positional Regulatory of Catabolic process, positional regulatory of cell catabolic process, negative regulation of phosphorylation, Wnt signaling pathway. Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG)pathway analysis showed that platelet miRNAs are involved in a number of signal pathways, including FoxO signaling pathway, ubiquitin mediated proteolysis, axon guidance, autophagy-animal, TGF-beta signaling pathway. Conclusion:MiRNAs in platelets of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma were differentially expressed. Platelet miRNAs should be involved in the biological process of hepatocellular carcinoma, while more samples and molecular biological experiments are needed. Overall design: 5 patients(4 males, 1 females) with hepatocellular carcinoma, and 5 healthy individuals(3 males,2 females) as control in this study