MiRNA SIGNATURE FOR ORAL SQUAMOUS CELL CARCINOMA

The present study is aimed at profiling the miRNA expression pattern in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) and adjacent oral mucosa to develop a new miRNA signature for oral cancer. Agilent Human miRNA Microarray v2.0 (G4470B, Agilent Technologies) was used to identify miRNAs differentially expressed in OSCC. MicroRNA processing was carried out according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Hybridized microarrays were scanned with a DNA microarray scanner (Agilent G2565BA) and features were extracted using the Agilent Feature Extraction (AFE) image analysis tool (version A.9.5.3) with default protocols and settings. Data pre-processing and differential expression analysis were done in R Studio using the Bioconductor AgiMicroRna package.12 The Total Gene Signal provided by the AFE image analysis software was used for data analysis. Data were normalized between arrays using the quantile method. Microarray profiling identified a set of 105 miRNAs to be differentially expressed in OSCC, out of which a subset of 19 most dysregulated miRNAs were considered to formulate the miRNA signature for oral cancer. miRNA microarray was used for miRNA profiling of 30 tumor and 18 normal tissue samples.