Abstract

Circulatory miRNA Biomarkers as “Liquid Biopsy” in Diseases

Heng-Phon Too, Associate Professor, National University of Singapore

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) belong to a class of small noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs). These miRNAs are short single-stranded RNA (~ 22 nt) in length and the number of publications has escalated exponentially, impacting on almost all fields of medical and basic sciences. miRNA are now known to regulate gene expression at the post-transcriptional level and to control protein expression noise in the cell. Considering this wide involvement in gene control, aberrant miRNA expression is strongly associated with the presence and progression of a disease, hence it is not a surprise that miRNAs may serve as biomarkers for the diagnosis and prognosis of human disorders including cancers, cardiovascular and others. The majority of miRNAs are intracellular, but recently they have been reported in numerous bodily fluids at low levels. Here we describe the use of real time qPCR and the design of discovery workflows with extensive quality control system to avoid pre-analytical and analytical variables as well as the quantitative determination of expression levels to enable the rapid identification of panels of useful biomarkers. Using these validated sequence-independent qPCR platform with unparalleled sensitivity and robustness, we found a large number of circulating miRNA that can detect the emergence of diseases at early stages and to stratify patients in many disorders. The next step is to adapt the panels of biomarkers onto dPCR platform. This presentation will discuss the value of circulating miRNAs as biomarkers.