Downregulation of plasma miR-124 expression is a predictive biomarker for prognosis of glioma.

Abstract

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have been widely identified as potential biomarkers for predicting prognosis of glioma. The objective of the study was to examine the clinical role ofplasmamiR-124 expression inglioma. MiR-124 expressionin plasmasamples from 64 cases gliomapatients and 40 normal healthy controls was examined by quantitative reverse transcription PCR (qRT-PCR). The correlation of miR-124 expression with clinicopathological feathers or prognosis ofgliomapatients was assessed. Univariate and multivariate Cox analysis were used to analyze the risk factors of prognosis. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was established, and the area under the ROC curve (AUC) was calculated to evaluate the difference of miR-124 expression in gliomapatients. We showed that miR-124 expression was significantly downregulated in plasma samples of gliomapatients compared with normal healthy controls (p<0.05). Plasma miR-124 expression significantly associated with Karnofsky Performance Status (KPS) score (p<0.05) and WHO grade (p<0.05) in gliomaplasma.Patients with lowmiR-124 expression had worse disease free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) time than patients with highmiR-124 expression. Univariate and multivariate analysis implied that lowmiR-124 expression was an independent maker of disease free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) in glioma. Our findings implied that plasma miR-124 expression may serve as an independent predictor of poor prognosis.