Université Libre de Bruxelles

The proposed research aims to better understand tumor progression by defining the role of threemiRNAs, miR-204-5p, miR-204-3p and miR-1179, in thyroid tumor progression. miRNAs aresmall, endogenous single-stranded RNA molecules ~ 23 nucleotides in length, which downregulategeneexpression at a post-transcriptional level by binding to their target mRNA and preventing itstranslation or inducing its degradation. The functional roles of miR-204-5p, miR-204-3p andmiR-1179 arestudied by performing different functional assays, including proliferation, viability, apoptosis,invasion and migration assays. Global gene expression modifications are analyzed by nextgeneration sequencing in order to determine the different signaling pathways involved. Finally, invivo evaluation of the interest of these microRNAs or their targets as potential therapeutic agentsfor thyroid cancer is performed.