PLoS ONE: Repertoire of microRNAs in Epithelial Ovarian Cancer as Determined by Next Generation Sequencing of Small RNA cDNA Libraries

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Background

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small regulatory RNAs that are implicated in cancer pathogenesis and have recently shown promise as blood-based biomarkers for cancer detection. Epithelial ovarian cancer is a deadly disease for which improved outcomes could be achieved by successful early detection and enhanced understanding of molecular pathogenesis that leads to improved therapies. A critical step toward these goals is to establish a comprehensive view of miRNAs expressed in epithelial ovarian cancer tissues as well as in normal ovarian surface epithelial cells.

Conclusions

This report expands the body of miRNAs known to be expressed in epithelial ovarian cancer and provides a useful resource for future studies of the role of miRNAs in the pathogenesis and early detection of ovarian cancer.

Discussion

The work reported here was motivated by the hypothesis that the entire repertoire of miRNAs expressed in ovarian cancer, including potentially tissue- and cancer-specific miRNAs, had not yet been elucidated.