Abstract 4731: Population specific microRNA expression and biological implications

• Published in: Cancer research (Chicago, Ill.) Ill.), 2011-04, Vol.71 (8_Supplement), p.4731-4731
• Main Authors: Huang, R. Stephanie, Gamazon, Eric R., Ziliak, Dana, Zhang, Wei, Im, Hae Kyung, Wing, Claudia, Duan, Shiwei, Bleibel, Wasim K., Cox, Nancy J., Dolan, M. Eileen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0008-5472; 1538-7445
• DOI: 10.1158/1538-7445.AM2011-4731

Population differences are commonly observed for many complex traits including response to chemotherapy. These differences may be attributed to the combined effect of socioeconomic, environmental, genetic and epigenetic factors. Indeed, genome-wide genetic and gene expression differences have been reported among different ethnic populations. Furthermore, we have previously reported population differences in cellular sensitivity to carboplatin, daunorubicin and ara-C and have established that both genetic variants and gene expression contribute to these observed population differences. Here we set out to evaluate to what extent population differences may be explained by an epigenetic factor, namely microRNA (miRNA) expression. We characterized genome-wide miRNA expression in unrelated 54 CEU (Utah residents with northern and western European ancestry) and 55 YRI (African from Ibadan, Nigeria) HapMap lymphoblastoid cell lines (LCLs) using the Exiqon miRCURYTM LNA arrays and evaluated baseline mRNA expression using Affymetrix GeneChip® Human Exon 1.0 ST array. Forty-one miRNA expression traits were found to differ significantly between these 2 ethnic groups (pBonferroni corrected