"MicroRNA Biomarker Identified For Bladder Cancers"
Cancer researchers have identified a microRNA that acts as a prognostic biomarker of p53-like bladder cancers. Bladder cancers can be categorized into subtypes according to gene expression patterns. P53-like muscle-invasive bladder cancers are generally resistant to cisplatin-based chemotherapy, but exhibit heterogeneous clinical outcomes with a prognosis intermediate to that of the luminal and basal subtypes. Investigators at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai had previously developed ActMiR, a computational method for explicitly inferring miRNA activities. “P53-like bladder cancers are generally resistant to standard chemotherapy treatment, and prognoses for these patients are so varied,” said senior author Jun Zhu, PhD, professor of genetics and genomic sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and head of data science at Sema4. “Our computational methods not only provided us with deeper insights into the cellular mechanisms underlying this elusive type of bladder cancer, but also reveal the potential of microRNAs as therapeutic targets in treating it.”
- Jun Zhu, PhD, Professor, Genetics and Genomic Sciences, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Head, Data Science, Sema4