Cell-Free miR-27a, a Potential Diagnostic and Prognostic Biomarker for Gastric Cancer

• Published in: Genomics & informatics Vol. 13; no. 3; pp. 70 - 75
• Main Authors: Park, Jong-Lyul, Kim, Mirang, Song, Kyu-Sang, Kim, Seon-Young, Kim, Yong Sung
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Korea (South) Korea Genome Organization 01.09.2015; BioMed Central; 한국유전체학회
• Subjects: miR-27a; Original; plasma; stomach neoplasms; 자연과학일반; plasma; miR-27a; stomach neoplasms
• ISSN: 2234-0742; 1598-866X; 2234-0742
• DOI: 10.5808/GI.2015.13.3.70

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have been demonstrated to play an important role in carcinogenesis. Previous studies revealed that miRNAs are present in human plasma in a remarkably stable form that is protected from endogenous RNase activity. In this study, we measured the plasma expression levels of three miRNAs (miR-21, miR-27a, and miR-155) to investigate the usefulness of miRNAs for gastric cancer detection. We initially examined plasma miRNA expression levels in a screening cohort consisting of 15 patients with gastric cancer and 15 healthy controls from Korean population, using TaqMan quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. We observed that the expression level of miR-27a was significantly higher in patients with gastric cancer than in healthy controls, whereas the miR-21 and miR-155a expression levels were not significantly higher in the patients with gastric cancer. Therefore, we further validated the miR-27a expression level in 73 paired gastric cancer tissues and in a validation plasma cohort from 35 patients with gastric cancer and 35 healthy controls. In both the gastric cancer tissues and the validation plasma cohort, the miR-27a expression levels were significantly higher in patients with gastric cancer. Receiver-operator characteristic (ROC) analysis of the validation cohort, revealed an area under the ROC curve value of 0.70 with 75% sensitivity and 56% specificity in discriminating gastric cancer. Thus, the miR-27a expression level in plasma could be a useful biomarker for the diagnosis and/or prognosis of gastric cancer.