Cancer and Schizophrenia

Recent evidence supports a role of microRNAs in cancer and psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, through their regulatory role on the expression of multi-ple genes. The rather rare co-morbidity of cancer and schizophrenia is an old hypothesis which needs further research on microRNAs as molecules that might exert their oncosup-pressive or oncogenic activity in the context of their role in psychiatric disorders. The ex-pression pattern of a variety of different microRNAs was investigated in patients (N = 6) suffering from schizophrenia termed control, patients with a solid tumor (N = 10) and pa-tients with both schizophrenia and tumor (N = 8). miRNA profiling was performed on whole blood samples using the miRCURY LNA microRNA Array technology (6th & 7th genera-tion). A subset of 3 microRNAs showed a statistically significant differential expression be