Expression profiling of selected microRNA signatures in plasma and tissues of Saudi colorectal cancer patients by qPCR.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs or miRs) have been advocated as potentially robust and highly stable biomarkers of diverse disease conditions including cancer. The primary aim of this study was two-fold: i) to profile the expression levels of selected mature miRNA signature genes, such as miR-145, miR-195, miR-29 and miR-92, in a paired-study design of 20 colorectal cancer (CRC) tissues from patients versus adjacent neoplasm-free mucosal tissues employing reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction; and ii) to examine their expression level in the plasma of the same CRC patients in relation to the age-matched plasma of healthy controls. Statistically significant (P<0.