Integrated analysis of colorectal cancer microRNA datasets: Identification of microRNAs associated with tumor development

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the leading cause of cancer death worldwide. Currently, no effective early diagnostic biomarkers are available for colorectal carcinoma. Therefore, there is a need to discover new molecules able to identify pre-cancerous lesions. Recently, microRNAs (miRNAs) have been associated with the onset of specific pathologies, thus the identification of miRNAs associated to colorectal cancer may be used to detect this pathology at early stages. On these bases, the expression levels of miRNAs were analyzed to compare the miRNAs expression levels of colorectal cancer samples and normal tissues in several miRNA datasets. This analysis revealed a group of 19 differentia…