MicroRNAs: new biomarker for diagnosis, prognosis, therapy prediction and therapeutic tools for acute lymphoblastic leukemia

Back ground: MicroRNA (miRNA) was originally discovered in Caenorhabditis elegans by Victor Ambrose in 1993. It was predicted that miRNA account for 1-6% of the human genome and regulated at least 33% of protein-coding genes. Recently, 945 distinct miRNAs molecules have been identified within the human genome. It has been associated with the pathogenesis, progression and prognosis of different diseases, such as leukemia. MiR-181 family is one of those miRNA families, which generally expressed in 70 species and various human cancers.Objective: Assessment of mir-181a and LDH as promising co-biomarkers in order to provide additional information influence decisions about treatment sequentially to improve health outcomes of ALL in the Egyptian children.Patients and methods: This study was conducted on 100 children; 50 with ALL (38 males and 12 females) as ALL group. Other 50 healthy age and sex matched children were collected randomly as control group. Serum lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and miRNA-181a were evaluated for all participants.Results: The results showed that there was a statistical significant difference between ALL and control groups regarding both molecular and biochemical indications of mir-181a and LDH were about almost five time as the control value, (P = 0.001). The ROC curve analysis revealed that the studied LDH and mir-181a markers were highly sensitive, highly specific and highly accurate test in the differentiation between the two studied ALL and control groups, with cutoff: ALL if mir-181a > 2.071, ALL if LDH > 0.307 respectively.Conclusion: MiRNA-181a and LDH can be used as co-biomarkers for ALL and might be beneficial in early diagnosis.