Circulatory Microrna Expression Profiling Between Hcv-Infected African & Caucasian Americans: Implications For Racial Health Disparities

The purpose of the study: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is global problem and incidence of HCC is increasing in last several years. Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is one of the major cause towards development of HCC. HCV infection is highly prevalent in African American population compared to other ethnic groups and these people are less likely to naturally clear HCV. Higher incidence of HCC and mortality was noted in HCV infected African Americans as compared to Caucasians. However, the explanation for this disparity and the molecular mechanisms behind this are currently unknown. Circulating microRNAs in the blood are emerging as biomarkers for pathological conditions. Differential expression of miRNAs among ethnic groups would be important for optimizing personalized treatment strategies. Experimental procedures: In this study, we assessed the differential expression of circulatory miRNAs from HCV infected African Americans and Caucasians by cancer specific miRNA array profiling. Expression of significantly altered miRNAs was validated by qRT-PCR. Results: We identified increased expression of miR-146a, miR-150 and miR-155 in HCV infected African Americans patient sera as compared to sera of Caucasians. Further analysis demonstrated that these miRNAs were significantly elevated in African Americans diagnosed with HCV-mediated HCC. Higher expression of miR-150 was also noted in cirrhosis and HCC in African Americans, which may serve as predictor of liver disease progression in this population. Conclusion: The differential expression of miRNAs suggests that these miRNAs and their target genes could be useful to gain further mechanistic insight of racial disparity associated with HCV pathogenesis. Citation Format: Pradip Devhare, Robert Steele, Adrian M. Di Bisceglie, David E. Kaplan, Ratna B. Ray. Circulatory microRNA expression profiling between HCV-infected African & Caucasian Americans: implications for racial health disparities [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2017; 2017 Apr 1-5; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2017;77(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 5724. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2017-5724