A novel biomarker for drug resistance in chronic myeloid leukemia: MicroRNA-17

Abstract

miRNAs are single stranded small RNA molecules (20–22 nt), which do not have ability to code for proteins. These types of RNAs play significant roles on gene regulation through inhibition of their target genes. In animals, most of miRNAs show their translational inhibitor effect on target mRNAs by semi-complementation to 3’UTR sequences of mRNAs and deadenylation that cause degradation of these mRNAs. The importance of miRNAs is increasing in cancer diagnosis and treatment since they are one of the major regulators of genes such as oncogenes, tumor suppressor genes. miR-17 is an oncogenic miRNA that suppress the activation of tumor suppressor genes like CDKN1A, p21 and E2F1. Based on previous information, we aimed to determine the correlation between expression levels of miR-17 microRNA in newly diagnosed, tyrosine kinase inhibitors treated and drug resistant CML patients.