The Diagnostic Value of Stool-Based MicroRNA-135b in the Early Detection of Colorectal Cancer and the Potent Neuro Function of MiR-146a

Abstract

Background: Detecting microRNA (miRNA) in stool is a non-invasive approach for colorectal cancer (CRC) screening. This study aims to assess the diagnostic performance of stool-based microRNA-135b in detection of colorectal cancer and the role of miR-146a. Methods: To identify eligible studies that are well suited for diagnostic value of miR-135b in stool of colorectal cancer patients, we have evaluated 3 papers after systematic literature search of public database. The sensitivity and specificity were used to plot the summary receiver operator characteristic (SROC) curve and calculate the area under the SROC curve (AUC). The between-study heterogeneity was evaluated by Q test and I2 statistics. Importantly, we have also identified microRNA (miRNA) gene expression patterns by expression profiling. Moreover, we execute the pathway analysis to find the function of miR-146a. Results: A total of 3 studies from 19 articles were included for the meta-analysis according to the inclusion criteria. The overall analysis showed that microRNA-135b has a relatively good diagnostic performance in colorectal cancer, with a sensitivity of 0.685, a specificity of 0.813 and a partial AUC of 0.658. In stool samples, level of microRNA-135b was 2.21 fold change higher in subjects with CRC (P < 0.0001). Moreover, our study proved that miR-146a involved in the neuro and immune function. Interpretation: In conclusion, stool-based microRNA-135b shows a moderate level of overall diagnostic accuracy in diagnosis of CRC, which may present as auxiliary means for the diagnosis of colorectal cancer compare with colonoscopy. Further large-scale prospective studies are necessary to validate their potential applicability (miR-135b and miR-146a) combined with FBT methods in human cancer diagnosis.