Serum microRNA expression profile: miR-1246 as a novel diagnostic and prognostic biomarker for oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma

• Published in: British journal of cancer Vol. 108; no. 3; pp. 644 - 652
• Main Authors: Takeshita, Nobuyoshi, Hoshino, Isamu, Mori, Mikito, Akutsu, Yasunori, Hanari, Naoyuki, Yoneyama, Yasuo, Ikeda, Norimasa, Isozaki, Yuka, Maruyama, Tetsuro, Akanuma, Naoki, Komatsu, Aki, Jitsukawa, Mari, Matsubara, Hisahiro
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 19.02.2013; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 631/1647/2217/2018; 631/337/384/331; 692/699/67/1504/1477; 692/699/67/1857; Adenocarcinoma - blood; Adenocarcinoma - genetics; Adenocarcinoma - pathology; Aged; Biological and medical sciences; Biomarkers; Biomarkers, Tumor - blood; Biomarkers, Tumor - genetics; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biomedicine; Cancer Research; Cancer therapies; Case-Control Studies; Cell culture; Chemotherapy; Drug Resistance; Epidemiology; Esophageal cancer; Esophageal carcinoma; Esophageal Neoplasms - blood; Esophageal Neoplasms - genetics; Esophageal Neoplasms - pathology; Esophagus; Esophagus - metabolism; Exosomes - metabolism; Female; Gastroenterology. Liver. Pancreas. Abdomen; Gene Expression Profiling; Humans; Lymphatic Metastasis; Lymphatic system; Male; Medical diagnosis; Medical prognosis; Medical research; Medical sciences; Metastasis; MicroRNAs; MicroRNAs - blood; MicroRNAs - genetics; miRNA; Molecular Diagnostics; Molecular Medicine; Neoplasm Metastasis; Neoplasm Staging; Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; Oncology; Prognosis; Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction; Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; Risk factors; RNA, Messenger - genetics; Squamous cell carcinoma; Surgery; Tumors; United States > US; Japan; oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma; biomarker; serum microRNA; miR-1246; RNA interference; Prognosis; Esophageal disease; Esophagus squamous cell carcinoma; Micro RNA; Biological marker; Malignant tumor; Esophagus cancer; Gene silencing; Cancerology; Digestive diseases; Serum; Diagnosis; Cancer
• ISSN: 0007-0920; 1532-1827; 1532-1827
• DOI: 10.1038/bjc.2013.8

Background: Recent studies have demonstrated that microRNAs (miRNAs) are stably detectable in blood and can serve as useful biomarkers for cancer. Methods: We performed an miRNA array using serum samples obtained from oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) patients or healthy controls. MiR-1246 was the most markedly elevated in ESCC patients. Therefore, miR-1246 was selected as a candidate for further analysis. The serum miR-1246 level in 46 healthy controls and 101 ESCC patients was evaluated and compared among various clinicopathological characteristics. MiR-1246 expressions in tissue, exosomal, and cellular samples were also examined. Results: Serum miR-1246 alone yielded an receiver-operating characteristic curve area of 0.754, with 71.3% sensitivity and 73.9% specificity for distinguishing ESCC patients from healthy controls. Serum miR-1246 was significantly correlated with the TNM stage and showed to be the strongest independent risk factor for poor survival (HR, 4.032; P =0.017). Unlike the tendency shown in previous reports, miR-1246 was not upregulated in ESCC tissue samples. Furthermore, exosomal miR-1246 did not reflect the abundance in the cell of origin. Conclusion: These data support our contention that serum miR-1246 has strong potential as a novel diagnostic and prognostic biomarker in ESCC, and its releasing mechanism is selective and independent of tissue miRNA abundance.