Expression level and potential target pathways of miR-1-3p in colorectal carcinoma based on 645 cases from 9 microarray datasets

Abstract

For the purpose of demonstrating the clinical value and unraveling the molecular mechanisms of micro RNA (miR)-1-3p in colorectal carcinoma (CRC), the present-study collected expression and diagnostic data from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO), ArrayExpress and existing literature to conduct meta-analyses and diagnostic tests. Furthermore, the potential targets of miR-1-3p were attained from datasets that transfected miR-1-3p into CRC cells, online prediction databases and differentially expressed genes from The Cancer Genome Atlas and literature. Subsequently, bioinformatics analysis was conducted based on the aforementioned selected target genes. As a result, downregulation of miR-1-3p was observed. The combined standardized mean difference was -0.51 with 95% confidence interval (CI) of -0.68 to -0.33 using a fixed effect model, which demonstrated a significant downregulation of miR-1-3p in CRC. The combined sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratio, negative likelihood ratio diagnostic score and odds ratio were 0.74 (95%CI: 0.48, 0.90), 0.75 (95%CI: 0.35, 0.94), 2.94 (95%CI: 1.01, 8.55), 0.34 (95%CI: 0.19, 0.60), 2.15 (95%CI: 1.06, 3.23) and 8.57 (95%CI: 2.89, 25.36). The summarized receiver operating characteristic curve demonstrated that the area under the curve was 0.81. In bioinformatics analyses based on 30 promising targets, the most enriched terms in Gene Ontology were positive regulation of transcription from RNA polymerase II promoter, extracellular region and transcription factor binding. Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathway analysis highlighted the pathway termed cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction. In protein-protein interaction analysis, platelet factor 4 was selected as the hub gene. To conclude, miR-1-3p is downregulated in CRC and likely suppresses CRC via multiple biological approaches, which indicates the diagnostic potential and tumor suppressive efficacy.