Association Between miR-539 and miR-6824 and Their Target Gene, MAP2K1, Expression Level in Oral Cancer.

Abstract

Oral cancer affects millions of people with a high mortality rate throughout the world. Increasing evidences have demonstrated that mircoRNAs (miRNAs) play crucial roles in the modulation of tumour growth and progression, whereas the functional role of miR-539 and miR-6824 in oral cancer is not well established. The mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway has a master control role in various cancer-related biological processes as cell growth, proliferation, differentiation, migration, and apoptosis. Mitogen-activated protein kinase 1, also known as MAP2K1, was verified as the target of miR-539 and miR-6824. In our present study, we sought to explore biological role of miR-539 and miR-6824 in OSCC progression and for better specificity and efficiency; stem-loop primers followed by real-time polymerase chain reaction have been determined. The expression level of miR-539 and miR-6824 expression was downregulated in OSCC tissues (p value = 0.00) (p value = 0.269) and OLP tissues (p value = 0.006) (p value = 0.054). Significant upregulation of MAP2K1 gene was noted in the OLP (p value = 0.034) and OSCC (p value = 0.01), specimens compared with healthy controls. Significant positive correlations were observed between miR-539 and miR-6824 (p value = 0.05). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was performed to assess the sensitivity and specificity of miRNAs as diagnostic biomarkers and result showed area under the ROC curve (AUC) of map2k1 was 0.92, has_miR_539 the area under ROC curve (AUC) was of 0.982 (p = 0.0001) and has_miR_6824 was 1.000 (p < 0.0001). This study provides the first evidence of the miR-539 and miR-6824 role in oral cancer and suggests a potential therapeutic target and prognostic predictor for oral cancer.