miRNA profiles as a predictor of chemoresponsiveness in Wilms' tumor blastema

The current SIOP treatment protocol for Wilms' tumor involves pre-operative chemotherapy followed by nephrectomy. Not all patients benefit equally from such chemotherapy. The aim of this study was to generate a miRNA profile of chemo resistant blastemal cells in high risk Wilms' tumors which might serve as predictive markers of therapeutic response at the pre-treatment biopsy stage. We have shown here that unsupervised hierarchical clustering of genome-wide miRNA expression profiles can clearly separate intermediate risk tumors from high risk tumors. A total of 29 miRNAs were significantly differentially expressed between post-treatment intermediate risk and high risk groups, including miRNAs that have been previously linked to chemo resistance in other cancer types. Furthermore, 7 of these 29 miRNAs were already at the pre-treatment biopsy stage differentially expressed between cases ultimately deemed intermediate risk compared to high risk. These miRNA alterations include down-regulation in high risk cases of miR-193a.5p, miR-27a and the up-regulation of miR-483.5p, miR-628.5p, miR-590.5p, miR-302a and miR-367. The demonstration of such miRNA markers at the pre-treatment biopsy stage could permit stratification of patients to more tailored treatment regimens.