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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Oncol. May 15, 2016; 8(5): 416-426
Published online May 15, 2016. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.v8.i5.416
MicroRNA in rectal cancer
Azadeh Azizian, Jens Gruber, B Michael Ghadimi, Jochen Gaedcke
Azadeh Azizian, B Michael Ghadimi, Jochen Gaedcke, Department of General, Visceral and Pediatric Surgery, University Medical Center Göttingen, 37075 Göttingen, Germany
Jens Gruber, Junior Research Group Medical RNA Biology, German Primate Center, 37077 Göttingen, Germany
Author contributions: All authors equally contributed to this paper with conception and design of the study, literature review and analysis, drafting and critical revision and editing, and final approval of the final version.
Conflict-of-interest statement: No potential conflicts of interest. No financial support.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Jochen Gaedcke, MD, Department of General, Visceral and Pediatric Surgery, University Medical Center Göttingen, Robert-Koch-Straße 40, 37075 Göttingen, Germany. jochen.gaedcke@med.uni-goettingen.de
Telephone: +49-551-3920933 Fax: +49-551-3912550
Received: October 3, 2015
Peer-review started: October 4, 2015
First decision: November 13, 2015
Revised: December 1, 2015
Accepted: March 7, 2016
Article in press: March 9, 2016
Published online: May 15, 2016
Processing time: 220 Days and 7 Hours
Abstract

In rectal cancer, one of the most common cancers worldwide, the proper staging of the disease determines the subsequent therapy. For those with locally advanced rectal cancer, a neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (CRT) is recommended before any surgery. However, response to CRT ranges from complete response (responders) to complete resistance (non-responders). To date we are not able to separate in advance the first group from the second, due to the absence of a valid biomarker. Therefore all patients receive the same therapy regardless of whether they reap benefits. On the other hand almost all patients receive a surgical resection after the CRT, although a watch-and-wait procedure or an endoscopic resection might be sufficient for those who responded well to the CRT. Being highly conserved regulators of gene expression, microRNAs (miRNAs) seem to be promising candidates for biomarkers. Many studies have been analyzing the miRNAs expressed in rectal cancer tissue to determine a specific miRNA profile for the ailment. Unfortunately, there is only a small overlap of identified miRNAs between different studies, posing the question as to whether different methods or differences in tissue storage may contribute to that fact or if the results simply are not reproducible, due to unknown factors with undetected influences on miRNA expression. Other studies sought to find miRNAs which correlate to clinical parameters (tumor grade, nodal stage, metastasis, survival) and therapy response. Although several miRNAs seem to have an impact on the response to CRT or might predict nodal stage, there is still only little overlap between different studies. We here aimed to summarize the current literature on rectal cancer and miRNA expression with respect to the different relevant clinical parameters.

Keywords: Polymorphism; MicroRNA; Rectal cancer; Response; Chemoradiotherapy; Expression

Core tip: In rectal cancer, a proper staging of the disease determines the subsequent therapy. Also, prediction of prognosis or therapy response could serve to individualize therapy. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are highly conserved regulators of gene expression, and seem to be promising candidates for biomarkers. Several miRNAs are part of a specific expression profile in rectal cancer tissue, while others have been correlated to clinical parameters and therapy response. However the comparison of different studies shows only little overlap and even partly oppositional results. Differences between analytical methods and tissue storage types can contribute to that. Further functional analyses are needed to fully understand the impact of miRNAs in rectal cancer.