Serum miR-21 expression in human esophageal squamous cell carcinomas.
To investigate the relationship between serum miRNA-21 (miR-21) expression in esophageal squamous cell carcinomas (ESCCs) and their clinicopathologic features, a 1:1 matched case-control study including 21 patients with ESCC and 21 age- and gender-matched healthy controls was carried out. Serum specimens were taken from all subjects. Total RNA was extracted and the stem-loop real time polymerase chain reaction was used to measure serum miR-21 in both groups. Clinical parameters were assessed to determine associations with serum miR-21 concentrations. Serum miR-21 expression in ESCC samples was significantly higher than in paired cancer-free samples (P <0.05). Metastasis was associated with mir-21 expression in serum (P <0.05), ESCC patients with metastasis having 8.4-fold higher serum miR-21 concentrations than healthy controls. There were no statistically significant associations between miR-21 expression and clinicopathologic parameters, such as gender (P >0.05), age (P >0.05), tumor location (P >0.05), cell differentiation (P >0.05), TNM staging (P >0.05), whether chemo/radiotherapy had been administered (P >0.05), or whether surgery had been performed (P >0.05). These findings suggest that the detection of microRNA-21 in serum might serve as a new tumor biomarker in diagnosis and assessment of prognosis of ESCCs.
Department of Preventive Medicine, Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, China.
Er-Hui
EH
Cai
Yong-Xin
YX
Gao
Zhong-zhi
ZZ
Wei
Wei-Ying
WY
Chen
Ping
P
Yu
Ke
K
Li
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor / Q000097:blood*; D002294:Carcinoma, Squamous Cell / Q000097:blood* / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000556:secondary*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D004938:Esophageal Neoplasms / Q000097:blood* / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000473:pathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D035683:MicroRNAs / Q000097:blood*; D008875:Middle Aged; D011379:Prognosis; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric
D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; C524940:MIRN21 microRNA, human; D035683:MicroRNAs