Bladder cancer represents a global health problem. It ranks ninth in worldwide cancer incidence. In Egypt, carcinoma of the bladder is the most prevalent cancer, accounting for as many as 31% of all cancer cases.Therefore, there have been lots of efforts to find non-invasive, sensitive, and specific molecular markers for bladder cancer. It has been suggested that miRNAs are useful in this respect. Many miRNAs were significantly upregulated or downregulated in different tumors. miR-145 was identified as a tumor-suppressive miRNA that is downregulated in several cancer types, including prostate cancer, ovarian cancer, colon cancer and bladder cancer.. Oct4 is a transcription factor that is required for pluripotency during early embryogenesis and the maintenance of embryonic stem cell (ESC) and pluripotent cell identity. Misexpression of Oct4 is correlated with tumorigenesis and can affect the behavior of tumors such as recurrence or resistance to therapy. Oct4 is largely expressed in human germ cell tumors and its expression has also been identified in several somatic cancers including prostate, breast and bladder carcinomas.
The current work aimed to study the role of Oct4 and miR-145 in bladder cancer by determining their expression in relation to various clinico-pathological parameters. Also to determine the relationship between the expression of Oct4 and miR-145.
50 subjects of both sexes were selected from Urology Department, Faculty of Medicine, Benha University Hospital.
It could be concluded that the significant decrease in miR-145 expression level in bladder cancer patients compared to the controls suggests its role as a tumor suppressor. Such decrease may be attributed to significant over expression of Oct4, a well known stem cell marker, in bladder cancer group compared to control group supporting the theory of cancer stem cell. |
