• Giuseppina Della Vittoria Scarpati, Francesca Falcetta, Chiara Carlomagno, Paolo Ubezio, Sergio Marchini, Alfonso De Stefano, Vijay Kumar Singh, Maurizio D'Incalci, Sabino De Placido, and Stefano Pepe.
• Department of Molecular and Clinical Endocrinology and Oncology, University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy.
• Int. J. Radiat. Oncol. Biol. Phys. 2012 Jul 15; 83 (4): 1113-9.

PurposeMicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small, noncoding RNA molecules that can be down- or upregulated in colorectal cancer and have been associated to prognosis and response to treatment. We studied miRNA expression in tumor biopsies of patients with rectal cancer to identify a specific "signature" correlating with pathological complete response (pCR) after neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy.Methods And MaterialsA total of 38 T3-4/N+ rectal cancer patients received capecitabine-oxaliplatin and radiotherapy followed by surgery. Pathologic response was scored according to the Mandard TRG scale. MiRNA expression was analyzed by microarray and confirmed by real-time Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (qRT-PCR) on frozen biopsies obtained before treatment. The correlation between miRNA expression and TRG, coded as TRG1 (pCR) vs. TRG >1 (no pCR), was assessed by methods specifically designed for this study.ResultsMicroarray analysis selected 14 miRNAs as being differentially expressed in TRG1 patients, and 13 were confirmed by qRT-PCR: 11 miRNAs (miR-1183, miR-483-5p, miR-622, miR-125a-3p, miR-1224-5p, miR-188-5p, miR-1471, miR-671-5p, miR-1909∗, miR-630, miR-765) were significantly upregulated in TRG1 patients, 2 (miR-1274b, miR-720) were downexpressed. MiR-622 and miR-630 had a 100% sensitivity and specificity in selecting TRG1 cases.ConclusionsA set of 13 miRNAs is strongly associated with pCR and may represent a specific predictor of response to chemoradiotherapy in rectal cancer patients.Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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