Gene expression profiling analysis of the role of miR-22 in clear cell ovarian cancer

This study aimed to investigate the role and potential mechanism of miR-22 in clear cell ovarian cancer (CCOC) progression. The gene expression profile of GSE16568, including 3 CCOC samples with miR-22 overexpression and 3 negative controls, was downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus database. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were screened using the limma package in R. Gene Ontology (GO) and pathway enrichment analysis of DEGs were performed by using The Database for Annotation, Visualization and Integrated Discovery (DAVID). Furthermore, protein-protein interaction (PPI) network of the DEGs was constructed using the Search Tool for the Retrieval of Interacting Genes (STRING) database. Besides, the miR-22 -mRNA interaction pairs were predicted to explore the critical genes involved in the cancer. Totally, 95 up-regulated DEGs and 51 down-regulated DEGs were identified. The DEGs were enriched in different GO terms and pathways. The up-regulated genes cyclin-dependent kinases (CDK6), MDM2 oncogene, E3 ubiquitin protein ligase (MDM2), and thrombospondin 1 (THBSI) were involved in the p53 signaling pathway. The up-regulated gene FBJ murine osteosarcoma viral oncogene homolog (FOS) was a hub protein in the PPI network of the DEGs. The down-regulated DEGs including lymphoid enhancer-binding factor 1 (LEF1) and v-myb avian myeloblastosis viral oncogene homolog (MYB) were mainly associated with immunity. Nine DEGs as target genes were identified to be recognized by miR-22. Our study suggested that several key genes such as CDK6, MDM2, LEF1, MYB, and FOS that involved in different pathways including p53 signaling pathway were associated with CCOC progression. miR-22 may play an essential role in cell migration and invasion in CCOC through targeting responsive genes.