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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Oncol. Jan 15, 2016; 8(1): 18-29
Published online Jan 15, 2016. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.v8.i1.18
MicroRNA in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma and its precursor lesions
Yasmin G Hernandez, Aimee L Lucas
Yasmin G Hernandez, Department of Internal Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029, United States
Aimee L Lucas, Henry Janowitz Division of Gastroenterology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029, United States
Author contributions: Hernandez YG and Lucas AL wrote the paper.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Authors declare no conflict of interest for this article.
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: Aimee L Lucas, MD, MS, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Henry Janowitz Division of Gastroenterology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, One Gustave Levy Place, Box #1069, New York, NY 10029, United States. aimee.lucas@mssm.edu
Telephone: +1-212-2410101 Fax: +1-646-5379616
Received: April 29, 2015
Peer-review started: May 7, 2015
First decision: September 8, 2015
Revised: November 4, 2015
Accepted: December 1, 2015
Article in press: December 2, 2015
Published online: January 15, 2016
Core Tip

Core tip: Reliable biomarkers are needed to detect pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) early in order to decrease mortality. In this review, we discuss what the current knowledge is on microRNA (miRNA) in PDAC and its precursor lesions. MiR-21, miR-155, miR-196, miR-210 are dysregulated in tissue, serum, cyst fluid, and stool of PDAC patients. MiR-21, miR-155, and miR-196 are dysregulated in intraductual papillary mucinous neoplasm and pancreatic intraepithelial lesions demonstrating that these miRNAs may serve as potential biomarkers for early stage lesions and cancer.