Bioinformatics analysis of circulating miRNAs related to cancer following spinal cord injury

Patients with spinal cord injury (SCI) have an increased risk of developing esophageal, bladder and hematologic malignancies compared with the normal population. In the present study, we aimed to identify, through in silico analysis, miRNAs and their target genes related to the three most frequent types of cancer in individuals with SCI. In a previous study, we reported a pattern of expression of miRNAs in 17 sedentary SCI males compared with 22 healthy able-bodied males by TaqMan OpenArray. This list of miRNAs deregulated in SCI patients was uploaded to miRWALK2.0 to predict the target genes and pathways of selected miRNAs. We used Cytoscape software to construct the network displaying the miRNAs and their gene targets. Among the down-regulated miRNAs in SCI, 21, 19 and 20 miRNAs were potentially associated with hematological, bladder and esophageal cancer, respectively, and three target genes (TP53, CCND1 and KRAS) were common to all three types of cancer. The three up-regulated miRNAs were potentially targeted by 18, 15 and 10 genes associated with all three types of cancer. Our current bioinformatics analysis suggests the potential influence of several miRNAs on the development of cancer in SCI. In general, these data may provide novel information regarding potential molecular mechanisms involved in the development of cancer among individuals with SCI. Further studies aiming at understanding how miRNAs contribute to the development of the major cancers that affect patients after SCI may help elucidate the role of these molecules in the pathophysiology of the disease.