Detection of miRNAs as Prognostic Markers in Anaplastic Ependymoma

Ependymoma is the third most common type of primary brain tumor in children. According to WHO, anaplastic ependymoma is classified as stage III. The standard treatment of Ependymoma is gross resection followed by adjuvant therapy (radiation or a specific regimen of chemotherapy), even with the development in the neurosurgical field to improve the patients outcome, still a section of patients has poor prognosis. The patients' responses to treatment vary due to differences in their genetic and epigenetic backgrounds. Several studies have been conducted to investigate the role of epigenetics and how it can influence the sensitivity of tumor cells to the treatment. MiRNAs, from the most predominant Epigenetics examples, since one miRNA can regulate more than one gene by turning it on or off. This single sequence, which ranges from 18 to 25 nucleotides, may act as a biomarker for diagnosis and prognosis across cancer types. Furthermore, it may predict the occurrence of treatment resistance, particularly radio resistance, in patients with Ependymoma. The purpose of this study is to detect for the differences in the miRNA expression in ependymoma between responder and nonresponder patients.The present study includes 21 Anaplastic Ependymoma patients who received the same treatment regimen (surgery followed by radiotherapy). RNA was extracted from FFPE then the concentration and purity were checked. Library preparation of purified RNA samples were performed then sequenced on the Miseq system.