Investigation gene and microRNA expression in glioblastoma

Abstract

Background: Glioblastoma is the most common primary brain tumor in adults. Though a lot of research has been focused on this disease, the causes and pathogenesis of glioblastoma have not been indentified clearly.Results: We indentified 1,236 significantly differentially expressed genes, and 30 pathways enriched in the set of differentially expressed genes among 243 tumor and 11 normal samples. We also indentified 97 differentially expressed microRNAs among 240 tumor and 10 normal samples. 22 of which have been reported to affect glioblastoma and 50 of which were implicated in other cancers and brain diseases. We regressed gene expression on microRNA expression in 237 tumor tissues and 10 normal tissues comprehensively. We found two experimentally validated microRNA targets and 1,094 miRNA-target gene pairs in our datasets which were predicted by miRanda algorithm, 8 of the target genes were tumor suppressor genes and 3 were oncogenes. Further function analysis of target genes suggested that microRNAs most frequently targeted genes associated with Cell Signalling and Nervous System.Conclusion: We investigated gene and microRNA Expression in Glioblastoma and gave a comprehensive function study of differential expressed gene and microRNA in glioblastoma patients. These findings gave important clues to study of the carcinogenic process in glioblastomas. © 2010 Dong et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.