Analysis of miRNA expression through microarray scan in penile carcinoma samples and normal-adjacent tissues

Penile cancer is a rare disease that has high morbidity and mortality rates. While a few biomarkers related to prognosis have been previously described to date, none of them was adopted in clinical practice. We used microarrays to identify miRNA-based molecular signatures to identify penile carcinoma regions from paired normal-adjacent tissues. We also used microarray information to distinguish patients with a high risk of metastatic penile carcinoma. Fresh frozen tissues of primary tumors were prospectively collected from 11 patients with squamous cell penile carcinoma who underwent surgical treatment between July/2015 and June/2017. Five patients had localized disease (non-metastatic group) and 6 had inguinal lymph node metastases (metastatic group). RNA was purified from tissues and microarray analysis was performed using miRNA 4.0 Genechip (Affymetrix).