miRNome of Child A hepatocellular carcinoma in Egyptian patients

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has different etiologies contribute to its heterogeneity. In Africa and the world, respectively, Egypt is the third and fifteenth most populous nation in HCC. Despite significant advancements in HCC diagnosis and treatment, the precise biology of the tumor is still not fully understood, which has a negative impact on patient outcomes. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) advances have expanded our understanding of the molecular complexity of HCC. In this study, 16 HCC and 6 tumor adjacent tissues (control) of Child A Egyptian patients were successfully profiled for the expression profile of miRNAs by NGS. Differential expression analysis identified 41 differentially expressed miRNAs (DEMs) with 31 up regulated and 10 were down regulated. Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analysis was then conducted on these differentially expressed miRNAs revealing that they were clearly related to several dysregulated pathways contributing in HCC development. Sensitivity and specificity analysis showed that hsa-miR-4488, hsa-miR-3178 and hsa-miR-3182 were unique miRNAs as they are expressed in HCC tissues only. These miRNAs were all highly involved in AMPK signaling pathways. However, hsa-miR-214-3p was expressed in control tissues around eight times higher than in cancer tissues and most abundant in pathways in cancer, PI3K-Akt signaling pathways. We here propose hsa-miR-4488, hsa-miR-3178 and hsa-miR-3182 and hsa-miR-214-3p as promising HCC diagnostic markers and recommend a prospective studies to validate their diagnostic and prognostic potential as well as their roles in the HCC pathophysiology.