Bioinformatics-based Identification of miRNAs, mRNA and regulatory signaling pathways involved in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

The most common form of esophageal cancer is esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). miRNAs are well recognized as having a critical regulatory role in human cancer, but their responsibilities and mechanisms of miRNA-mRNA in ESCC are yet unknown. As a result, the miRNA microarray dataset (GSE66274) and gene expression microarray dataset (GSE38129) with similar samples were analyzed to better understand the miRNA-mRNA interactions. The differentially expressed miRNAs (DEmiRNAs) and differentially expressed mRNAs (DEmRNAs) were identified using the LIMMA package in R. In total, 478 DEmRNA (224 up-regulated & 254 down-regulated) and 39 DEmiRNA (15 up-regulated & 24 down-regulated) were screened out. miRNA-mRNA interactions were analyzed by RNAInter database, then the miRNA-mRNA network was visualized by Cytoscape software. On the other hand; ClusterProfiler packages were used to perform gene ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analyses for DEmRNA as targets of DEmiRNAs. KEGG pathway analysis indicated that the p53 signaling pathway, ECM−receptor interaction, and AGE−RAGE signaling pathway were significant. Besides, cellular response to amino acid stimulus, negative regulation of apoptotic signaling pathway, and endoderm formation was most prevalent in the biological process category. Additionally, the collagen−containing extracellular matrix, actomyosin complex collagen trimers and basement membrane, and extracellular matrix structural constituent were more enriched. Taken together, the present survey provided evidence that could support the prognosis of esophageal tumors in the future.