• The MALAT1/has-mir-149-5p/FAT1 CeRNA network: a diagnostic biomarker for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma
  • Amirhossein Mohajeri Khorasani,1,* Pedram Bolbolizadeh,2 Pegah Mousavi,3 Maryam Babaei,4 Samane Mohamadi,5
    1. Department of Medical Genetics, Faculty of Medicine, Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences, Bandar Abbas, Iran.
    2. Student Research Committee, Faculty of Para Medicine, Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences, Bandar Abass, Iran.
    3. Department of Medical Genetics, Faculty of Medicine. Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences Research Center for Molecular Medicine, Bandar Abbas, Iran
    4. Student Research Committee, Faculty of Pharmacy, Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences, Bandar Abass, Iran.
    5. Department of Medical Genetics, Faculty of Medicine, Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences, Bandar Abbas, Iran.


  • Introduction: Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSC) originating from the mucosal epithelium of the mouth, throat, and larynx is the sixth most common cancer worldwide and has mortality rates approaching 50%. Cancer biomarkers are biological molecules that have a clinical utility in the screening, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer. Competing endogenous RNAs (CeRNAs) such as long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), and circular RNAs (circRNAs) play an important role in cancer initiation, progression, metastasis, and recurrence. Using CeRNA networks as a biomarker to early diagnose cancer presents new opportunities for decreasing cancer complications. This study aims to identify ceRNAs as diagnostic biomarkers for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.
  • Methods: The 20 genes with the highest mutation frequency in HNSC were downloaded from the cosmic database and the FAT1 gene was selected as a possible biomarker for HNSC using the GEPIA2 database (Log2FC>+1, p-value <0.05). Using the Venny 2.1 tool, we got the intersection between the down-regulated miRNAs in HNSC from the dbDEMC 3.0 database (LogFC<-1, adjusted p-value<0.05), and the NRG1 targeting miRNAs from the starBase v3.0 database, as well as the intersection between the miRNAs corresponding lncRNAs from the starBase v3.0 database and the up-regulated HNSC lncRNAs from the Lnc2cancer database. Then, we used the Cytoscape software version 3.9.1 to visualize the lncRNA-miRNA-mRNA network and determine the hub lncRNAs and miRNAs that have key roles in regulating the FAT1 gene.
  • Results: We determined that hsa-miR-23b-3p, hsa-miR-149-5p, MALAT1, and H19 lncRNAs and FAT1 mRNA have the highest scores in the maximal clique centrality (MCC) ranking method.
  • Conclusion: The MALAT1/has-mir-149-5p/FAT1 CeRNA network can be used as the novel diagnostic biomarker for the early detection of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.
  • Keywords: MALAT1, FAT1, Biomarker, Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma