The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with a population estimated at 16,945,484, composed mostly of native Saudis (62%) the Saudi cancer registry, reported that Colorectal cancer (CRC) was the second most common malignancy among Saudis for all ages (10.3%) and the number one malignancy in males (11.8%). It has been predicted that by the year 2030, that the CRC incidence in Saudi Arabia would increase four-fold in both genders. Hence, more in-depth efforts on the molecular basis of CRC are warranted.
MicroRNAs (miRNAs), a novel class of small non-coding RNAs, are effective post-transcriptional regulators of gene expression with a critical regulatory function acting as an oncogene or a tumor-suppressor gene. However, the diagnostic value of miRNAs has not been fully explored.
This study is aimed at the discovery of novel miRNA biomarkers via the use of a high-throughput Next-Gen Illumina-based sequencing strategy; thus enabling a comprehensive survey of all novel and differentially-expressed miRNAs in CRC tissues and plasma as compared to healthy controls. Subsequently, the level of expression of potential miRNA markers will be validated by real-time PCR and their key miRNA target genes will be identified by gene ontology analysis. Next, miRNAs that are significantly dysregulated (i.e. down-regulated and up-regulated) will be identified, whereby enabling the identification of some of the bona fide miRNAs regulators in colorectal adenocarcinomas. The outcome of study this the will extend our current knowledge on miRNA dysregulation in CRC. As such the results would pave the road towards the robust validation of potentially novel circulating miRNAs biomarkers for early and minimally-invasive diagnosis of CRC.