microRNA expression signature of colorectal cancer

To elucidate novel aspects of the molecular pathogenesis of colorectal cancer (CRC), we have created a new microRNA (miRNA) expression signature based on RNA-sequencing. Analysis of the signature showed that 84 miRNAs were upregulated and 70 were downregulated in CRC tissues. Interestingly, our signature indicated that both guide and passenger strands of some miRNAs were significantly dysregulated in CRC tissues. In this analysis, we obtained between 11,432,618 and 19,286,983 total sequence reads. After the trimming procedure, we mapped them to the human genome and deter-mined that 3,018,259 to 16,436,280 sequences were small human RNAs. A total of 10 samples (5 CRC tissues and 5 noncancerous tumor-adjacent tissues) were analyzed using RNA sequencing techniques to generate a CRC miRNA signature.