miR-204 down-regulation elicited perturbation of a gene target signature common to human cholangiocarcinoma and gastric cancer.. Homo sapiens

There is high need of novel diagnostic and prognostic tools for tumors of the digestive system, such as gastric cancer and cholangiocarcinoma. We employed Affymetrix profiling of 15 gastric tumor tissues and 5 normals to evaluate the levels of miR-204 target genes. We performed extensive in silico analysis to identify a minimal gene target signature which anti-correlated with the levels of miR-204 and validated all of the findings on publicly available databases. We employed transient transfection experiments, clonogenic assays and cell cycle profiling to evaluate the dependency of the target genes signature of miR-204 and the biological consequences of miR-204 perturbation. Then we validate the data obtained in a cohort of tumoral and normal gastric samples, tumoral and normal cholangiocarcinoma samples. to statistically strengthen the genes signature obtained we analyzed data available on gastric, colangiocarcinoma, esophageal and colon database Overall design: 15 gastric tumor tissues and 5 normals