Micro Rna-181a And Its Target Smad 7 As Potential Biomarkers For Tracking Child-Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

Abstract

ALL is the most common cancer diagnosed in children. The annual incidence in Egypt is approximately 4 cases per 100.000 children. MiRNAs are small non-coding molecules containing ~22 nucleotides. They regulate all aspects of a cell by alteration of key regulatory genes expression and/or by regulating many genes in a pathway. Its deregulation has been demonstrated in most tumors examined. Mir-181a is associated with the regulation of normal hematopoiesis and its disruption has been related to many types of cancer, including hematological malignancies. It can act as tumor suppressor or oncogene, depending on the cellular context and on the consequent expression of its targets. Smad7 was selected as miR-181a target pair. It had been known as a negative regulator for the TGF-β1 signaling pathway. It is one of the most potent endogenous negative regulators of hematopoiesis. Loss of its tumor suppressive effect leads to tumor progression and metastasis. This study was carried out to evaluate the expression level of miR-181a, Smad7 and TGF-β proteins in both child-ALL malignant group and normal healthy children control group, aiming to highlight a functional role of any of them in diagnosis of child-ALL. Additionally to relate the previous data in child-ALL