Unraveling Cancer Progression in Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma through Regulatory Network Analysis; miRNA-Target Gene Interaction

Dysregulation of microRNAs (miRs) plays an essential role in tumor progression of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) through altering target genes’ function and expression. This study aims to investigate the regulatory network of the miR-target gene involved in cancer progression to find key miRs and target genes. We used OSCC transcriptomic data obtained from GSE28100. To find the critical target genes shared between the miRs, we used miRecord and mirTarBase databases and analyzed the regulatory of miR-target genes using network analysis by Cytoscape. We selected 11 miRs and assessed their expression with qRT-PCR in 10 OSCC tissue samples compared to normal oral tissues. UACLAN database was applied to find the expression of these 11 miRs and their overall survival in OSCC. We found that eight miRNAs were upregulated, and three of them were down-regulated. The highest expression level belonged to miR-10b. The other up-regulated microRNAs were miR-196a, miR-103, miR-21, miR-31, miR-494, miR-9 and miR-200c. Three miRs that were downregulated are miR-195, miR-133a, and miR-221. Expression data of the UACLAN database confirmed the transcriptomic data. The miR-target gene network of 11 miRs released some crucial molecules, including miR-21, miR-9, miR-196a, miR-221, miR-133a, CDK6, ZEB1, MYC, E2F3, RHOA, SP1, and CCND1. Our analysis showed that miRNAs can be suggested as potential biomarkers for prognosis and predicting the OSCC progression.