Expression of circulating miRNA-21 and miR-99b in HBV-related liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma

Abstract

Objective: Our primary objective was to assess whether these miRNAs could serve as potential biomarkers for distinguishing hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), even in its early stages, from other liver diseases, particularly liver cirrhosis (LC). Subject and method: We conducted a study involving two patient groups: 50 LC and 50 HCC patients. We employed a screening approach utilizing open data sources (PubMed, Science Research, Google Scholar…), alongside bioinformatics analysis tools to identify miRNAs exhibiting high expression levels in cirrhosis and liver cancer. The miRNAs we selected for evaluation included miRNA-21, miRNA-34a, miRNA-99b, and miRNA-224. Result: The expression levels of miRNA-21 in plasma were found to be significantly higher in the HCC group compared to the cirrhosis group (p<0.001). The combination of miRNA-21 or miRNA-99b and AFP had improved diagnostic performance in distinguishing between these two groups compared to single markers. The area under the ROC curve was significantly high as expected when combining miRNA-99b and AFP with AUC = 0.85 (single miRNA-99b: AUC = 0.715). Similarly for the combination of miRNA-21 and AFP, this simple panel also had a good performance with the AUC = 0.794 (single miRNA-21: AUC = 0.715). Conclusion: miRNA-21 and miRNA-99b hold promise as potential biomarkers for the diagnosis of HCC.