Profiling salivary miRNA expression levels in Fanconi anemia patients – a pilot study

Abstract

The overarching goal of this study is to predict the risk of developing oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) in Fanconi anemia (FA) patients. We have compared the microRNA (miRNA, miR) expression levels in saliva samples from FA patients (n = 50) who are at a low-moderate and/or high risk of developing OSCC to saliva samples from healthy controls (n = 16). The miRNA expression levels in saliva samples were quantified using qPCR. We observed that miR-744, miR-150-5P, and miR-146B-5P had the best discriminatory capacity between FA patients and controls, with an area under the curve (AUC) of 94.0%, 92.9% and 85.3%, respectively. Our data suggest that miR-1, miR-146B-5P, miR-150-5P, miR-155-5P, and miR-744 could be used as panel to predict the risk of developing OSCC in FA patients, with a 89.3% sensitivity and a 68.2% specificity (AUC = 81.5%). Our preliminary data support the notion that the expression levels of salivary miRNAs have the potential to predict the risk of developing OSCC in FA patients and in the future may reduce deaths associated with OSCC.