MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play important roles in cellular functions and developmental processes. They are also implicated in oncogenesis mechanisms and could serve as potential cancer biomarkers. Using high-throughput miRNA sequencing information, expression of both the 5p-arm and 3p-arm mature miRNAs were demonstrated and generated from the single miRNA hairpin precursor. However, current miRNA annotations lack comprehensive 5p-arm/3p-arm feature annotations. Among known human mature miRNAs, only half of them are annotated with arm features. This generated ambiguous results in many miRNA-Sequencing (miRNA-Seq) studies. In this report, we have interrogated the TCGA (the Cancer Genome Atlas) miRNA expression datasets with an improved, fully annotated human 5p-arm and 3p-arm miRNA reference list. By utilizing this comprehensive miRNA arm-feature annotations, enhanced determinations and clear annotations were achieved for the miRNA isoforms (isomiRs) recognized from the sequencing reads. In the gastric cancer (STAD) dataset, as an example, 32 5p-arm/3p-arm OPEN ACCESS J. Clin. Med. 2015, 4 1799 specific miRNAs were found to be down-regulated and 24 5p-arm/3p-arm specific miRNAs were found to be up-regulated. We have further extended miRNA biomarker discoveries to additional TCGA miRNA-Seq datasets and provided extensive expression information on 5p-arm/3p-arm miRNAs across multiple cancer types. Our results identified several miRNAs that could be potential common biomarkers for human cancers.

Inhaled corticosteroids are recommended as the first-line controller medication for childhood asthma owing to their multiple clinical benefits. However, heterogeneity in the response towards these drugs remains a significant clinical problem. Children aged 5 to 18 years with mild to moderate persistent asthma were recruited into the Taiwanese Consortium of Childhood Asthma Study. Their responses to inhaled corticosteroids were assessed based on their improvements in the asthma control test and peak expiratory flow. The predictors of responsiveness were demographic and clinical features that were available in primary care settings. We have developed a prediction model using logistic regression and have simplified it to formulate a practical tool. We assessed its predictive performance using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve. Of the 73 asthmatic children with baseline and follow-up outcome measurements for inhaled corticosteroids treatment, 24 (33%) were defined as non-responders. The tool we have developed consisted of three predictors yielding a total score between 0 and 5, which are comprised of the following parameters: the age at physician-diagnosis of asthma, sex, and exhaled nitric oxide. Sensitivity and specificity of the tool for prediction of inhaled corticosteroids non-responsiveness, for a score of 3, were 0.75 and 0.69, respectively. The areas under the receiver operating characteristic curve for the prediction tool was 0.763. Our prediction tool represents a simple and low-cost method for predicting the response of inhaled corticosteroids treatment in asthmatic children.