Mir-16 Micro RNA Precursor Family - Clinical Relevance

Clinical Relevance

Altered expression of microRNA-16 has been observed in cancer, including malignancies of the breast, colon, brain, lung, lymphatic system, ovaries, pancreas, prostate and stomach. This difference in expression levels can be used distinguish between cancerous and healthy tissues and to determine clinical prognosis. The fact that pathology is associated with a different expression profile has led to the proposal that disease specific biomarkers can provide potential targets for directed clinical intervention. More recently, there is evidence that in colorectal cancer that the efficacy of treatment with the monoclonal antibody cetuximab can be assessed by the expression pattern of colorectal carcinoma after therapy.

miR-16 and miR-15a are clustered within a 0.5 kbp region in Chromosome 13 (13q14) in humans, a chromosomal region shown to be deleted or down-regulated in approximately more than half of B-CLL, the most prevalent form of leukemia in adults.Carcinogenesis is a gradual process, involving multiple genetic mutations, thus every patient with malignancy presents with a heterogeneous population of cells. The fact that mir-16 microRNA loss is observed in a large proportion of cells indicates the change occurred early in cancer development and a target for therapeutic intervention.