Circulating levels of microRNA193a-5p predict outcome in early stage hepatocellular carcinoma

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 15; no. 9; p. e0239386
• Main Authors: Loosen, Sven H, Wirtz, Theresa H, Roy, Sanchari, Vucur, Mihael, Castoldi, Mirco, Schneider, Anne T, Koppe, Christiane, Ulmer, Tom F, Roeth, Anjali A, Bednarsch, Jan, Alizai, Patrick H, Paffenholz, Pia, Demir, Münevver, Trautwein, Christian, Tacke, Frank, Neumann, Ulf P, Roderburg, Christoph, Luedde, Tom
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: San Francisco Public Library of Science 22.09.2020; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Biology and life sciences; Biomarkers; Blood & organ donations; Etiology; Gastroenterology; Gene expression; Genetic aspects; Health aspects; Hepatocellular carcinoma; Hepatology; Hospitals; Infectious diseases; Kidney cancer; Liver cancer; Liver transplantation; Liver transplants; Medicine; Medicine and Health Sciences; MicroRNA; miRNA; Oncology; Patient outcomes; Patients; Prognosis; Regression analysis; Serum levels; Surgery; Surgical outcomes; Transplantation; Tumor suppressor genes; Tumors; Germany; Aachen Germany
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0239386

While tumor resection and liver transplantation (LT) represent potentially curative therapeutic options for patients with early-stage hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), the identification of the ideal surgical candidates has remained challenging. Just recently, miRNA-193a-5p was described as a tumor suppressor in murine and human HCC but only little is known about circulating miRNA-193a-5p in HCC patients. Here, we evaluated serum levels of miR-193a-5p by qPCR in 41 HCC patients undergoing tumor resection (n = 33) or LT (n = 8) and 20 controls. Circulating relative miR-193a-5p levels were significantly elevated in HCC patients compared to healthy controls. While relative miR-193a-5p levels were comparable between patients of different underlying disease etiology and tumor size, high relative miR-193a-5p levels were predictive for the patients' postoperative outcome, which was confirmed in uni- and multivariate Cox-regression analysis. As such, HCC patients with a preoperative relative miR-193a-5p level above the ideal cut-off value (3.57) had a median overall survival (OS) of only 451 days compared to 1158 days in patients with a relative miR-193a-5p level below this cut-off value. Our data support a novel function of miR-193a-5p as a biomarker in early-stage HCC patients that might help to identify the best surgical candidates in terms of postoperative outcome.