Exosomal-miRNA profiles as diagnostic biomarkers in cervical cancer.

Abstract

10557 Background: MicroRNA (miRNA) expression is altered in cancer cells and associated with the development and progression of various types of cancer. miRNA could serve as diagnostic or prognostic biomarker for cancer patients. Our study was designed to analyze circulating exosomal-miRNA in patients with cervical cancer. Methods: Total RNA was extracted from serum in healthy women and patients with cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) and cervical cancer. We first explored miRNA expression profiles using miRCURY LNA microRNA Array (Exiqon) in each six malignant and healthy serum samples. miRNAs with significant differences in expression were validated in larger sample sets by a quantitative real-time RT-PCR using TaqMan gene expression assays (Applied Biosystems). Results: Six of 1223 miRNAs compared in serum samples from cervical cancer and normal control were found to have a >3.0-fold change with a P value <0.01 using miRCURY LNA microRNA Array. In a validation set (n=101), expression of 3 of the 6 miRNAs, miR-483-5p, miR-1246 and miR-1275, was significantly different between the cervical cancer (n=40) and control (n=20) samples. We also found that the median levels of these miRNAs were significantly higher in patients with cervical cancer (n=40) than those in CIN (n=41). Circulating miRNAs were not correlated with clinical-pathological parameters except for miR-1246. Compared to patients with squamous cell carcinoma, the miR-1246 level was significantly higher in those with adenocarcinoma. Whereas, receiver-operator characteristic (ROC) curve analyses suggest that these serum miRNAs may be useful markers for discriminating patients with cervical cancer from healthy controls. Conclusions: Expression of circulating miR-483-5p, miR-1246 and miR-1275 is significantly higher in the blood of cervical cancer patients compared to controls and may potentially serve as a useful biomarker for cervical cancer diagnosis. Especially, miR-1246 may be a candidate for early detection of cervical adenocarcinoma. Larger-scaled studies are warranted to fully explore the role of circulating exosomal-miRNAs in cervical cancer.