Circulating miRNA-199a and miRNA-122 Levels as Potential Diagnostic and Prognostic Biomarkers for Hepatocellular Carcinoma.

OBJECTIVE:MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are associated with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) progression and metastasis. However, it is unclear whether they could act as biomarkers for HCC diagnosis and prognosis. METHODS:In this study, the miR-122 and miR-199a expression levels were determined by quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR). The function and molecular mechanism of miR-122 and miR-199a target genes were analyzed by Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analysis. Correlation between miRNA expression levels and the overall survival (OS) of HCC patients was assessed by Kaplan-Meier analysis. RESULTS:Serum miR-122 expression had no significant difference between patients with HCC (HCC patients) and healthy controls (HCs), whereas serum miR-199a expression was significantly lower in HCC patients than the HCs (p<0.05). Receiver-operator characteristic (ROC) curve analysis revealed that miR-199a could be an effective diagnostic biomarker for HCC, which was confirmed by obvious expression polarization patterns of miR-199a target genes. Kaplan-Meier analysis revealed that miR-122 expression level was associated with the OS of HCC patients (p<0.001), suggesting that miR-122 could be a prognostic biomarker for HCC. CONCLUSIONS:Collectively, our results showed that circulating miR-199a and miR-122 levels could serve as novel, non-invasive biomarkers for HCC diagnosis and prognosis, respectively.

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