Abstract
BackgroundMicroRNAs are stable and easy to detect in plasma. The plasma levels of microRNAs are often changed in disease conditions, including cancer. This makes circulating microRNAs a novel class of biomarkers for cancer diagnosis. Analyses of online microRNA data base revealed that expression level of three microRNAs, microRNA-24 (miR-24), microRNA-320a (miR-320a), and microRNA-423-5p (miR-423-5p) were down-regulated in colorectal cancer (CRC). However, whether the plasma level of these three microRNAs can serve as biomarkers for CRC diagnosis and prognosis is not determined.MethodsPlasma samples from 223 patients with colorectal related diseases (111 cancer carcinoma, 59 adenoma, 24 colorectal polyps and 29 inflammatory bowel disease) and 130 healthy controls were collected and subjected to reverse transcription-quantitative real time PCR (RT-qPCR) analyses for the three microRNAs. In addition, plasma samples from 43 patients were collected before and after surgical treatment for the same RT-qPCR analyses.ResultsThe concentrations of plasma miR-24, miR-320a and miR-423-5p were all decreased in patients with CRC and benign lesions (polyps and adenoma) compared with healthy controls, but increased in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The sensitivity of miR-24, miR-320a and miR-423-5p for early stage of CRC were 77.78 %, 90.74 %, and 88.89 %, respectively. Moreover, the plasma concentration of the three microRNAs was increased in patients after the surgery who had clinical improvement.ConclusionsThe plasma levels of miR-24, miR-320a, and miR-423-5p have promising potential to serve as novel biomarkers for CRC detection, especially for early stage of CRC, which are superior to the currently used clinical biomarkers for CRC detection, such as CEA and CA19-9. Further efforts to develop the three microRNAs as biomarkers for early CRC diagnosis and prediction of surgical treatment outcomes are warrant.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13046-015-0198-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
MicroRNAs are stable and easy to detect in plasma
Establishing quantitative Reverse transcription (RT)-PCR analyses for detecting miR-24, miR-320a, miR-423-5p and cel-miR-39 in plasma Since abnormal expression of microRNAs are often associated with cancer progression, we identified the three microRNAs based on the following (1) up-regulated or downregulated in colorectal cancer (CRC) compared with adjacent tissues in the miRCancer database, or our previous study; (2) has not been analyzed in CRC patients plasma; and (3) Ct value in plasma is less than 35
The changes of plasma level of the three microRNAs predicted the risk of post-surgery metastasis
Summary
The plasma levels of microRNAs are often changed in disease conditions, including cancer This makes circulating microRNAs a novel class of biomarkers for cancer diagnosis. MicroRNAs are small non-coding RNAs of 18–22 nucleotides in length, which regulate gene expression at the post-transcriptional level by binding to the untranslated regions (UTRs) of mRNAs [5,6,7]. Since their discovery in 1993, emerging evidence shows that altered expression of microRNAs is associated with cancer, including CRC [1, 8,9,10]. Circulating microRNAs show great potential values as tumor markers for cancer diagnosis
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