miRNA Based Gene Regulation of Bladder Cancer in A Specific Population of Caucasian Race and Different Sexes

Bladder cancer is the 10th most prevalent cancer in the world because the symptoms are difficult to see. Studies in bladder cancer has been gravitating towards miRNA due to its role in cancer gene expression. Previous studies have found specific miRNAs that regulate certain genes in cancer patients, such as miRNA-556-3p that regulates the DAB2IP gene. However, most studies of miRNA-gene regulation in bladder cancer uses wet lab methods or is only a meta-analysis of other studies. This study aims to create a pipeline to predict miRNA-gene regulation based on negative correlation values in a specific population of Caucasian male and female that could have different gene expressions due to environmental factors. For this study, miRNA and gene expression dataset were obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). Computational analysis to determine miRNA and gene expression was done using MySQL and correlation analysis using MATLAB. A total of 2,000 and 700 miRNA-gene interactions were found in female and male, respectively, showing different gene expressions between sexes from the same race. The correlation values all peaked between - 0.5 to -0.8 showing intermediate significance of the interaction between miRNA-gene pairs. However, 387 out of 2,000 and 116 out of 700 interactions were not found in miRTarBase, meaning no studies have been conducted to prove the interaction of the miRNA-gene pairs. This study also provides suggestion for future studies to further investigate and validate miRNA-gene pair interactions using molecular docking and molecular dynamics computation.