Cell-Free miR-27a, a Potential Diagnostic and Prognostic Biomarker for Gastric Cancer.
- Author:
Jong Lyul PARK
1
;
Mirang KIM
;
Kyu Sang SONG
;
Seon Young KIM
;
Yong Sung KIM
Author Information
- Publication Type:Original Article
- Keywords: miR-27a; plasma; stomach neoplasms
- MeSH: Carcinogenesis; Cohort Studies; Diagnosis; Humans; Mass Screening; MicroRNAs; Plasma; Prognosis; Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction; Ribonucleases; ROC Curve; Sensitivity and Specificity; Stomach Neoplasms*
- From:Genomics & Informatics 2015;13(3):70-75
- CountryRepublic of Korea
- Language:English
- Abstract: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have been demonstrated to play an important role in carcinogenesis. Previous studies revealed that miRNAs are present in human plasma in a remarkably stable form that is protected from endogenous RNase activity. In this study, we measured the plasma expression levels of three miRNAs (miR-21, miR-27a, and miR-155) to investigate the usefulness of miRNAs for gastric cancer detection. We initially examined plasma miRNA expression levels in a screening cohort consisting of 15 patients with gastric cancer and 15 healthy controls from Korean population, using TaqMan quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. We observed that the expression level of miR-27a was significantly higher in patients with gastric cancer than in healthy controls, whereas the miR-21 and miR-155a expression levels were not significantly higher in the patients with gastric cancer. Therefore, we further validated the miR-27a expression level in 73 paired gastric cancer tissues and in a validation plasma cohort from 35 patients with gastric cancer and 35 healthy controls. In both the gastric cancer tissues and the validation plasma cohort, the miR-27a expression levels were significantly higher in patients with gastric cancer. Receiver-operator characteristic (ROC) analysis of the validation cohort, revealed an area under the ROC curve value of 0.70 with 75% sensitivity and 56% specificity in discriminating gastric cancer. Thus, the miR-27a expression level in plasma could be a useful biomarker for the diagnosis and/or prognosis of gastric cancer.
