MicroRNAs Associated With Biological Pathways of Left- and Right-sided Colorectal Cancer.

BACKGROUND/AIM MicroRNAs (miRNAs) regulate the development of colorectal cancer (CRC). We aimed to investigate miRNAs and their relation to cancer-related signaling pathways in site-specific CRC. MATERIALS AND METHODS We used a total of 24 left- and right-sided Finnish CRC samples (discovery cohort) and The Cancer Genome Atlas public mature miRSeq dataset of 201 CRC samples (validation cohort). MiRNA differential expression and biological pathway analyses were performed using DESeq2 and the DIANA/mirPath tool, respectively. RESULTS We found 17 significantly differentially up-regulated [false discovery rate (FDR) <0.05] miRNAs in left-sided CRC ("left miRNAs"), and 15 in right-sided CRC ("ri…