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


CONCLUSIONS
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.
Department of Frontier Surgery, Chiba University Graduate School of Medicine, Inohana 1-8-1, Chuo-ku, Chiba 260 8670, Japan.
N
N
Takeshita
I
I
Hoshino
M
M
Mori
Y
Y
Akutsu
N
N
Hanari
Y
Y
Yoneyama
N
N
Ikeda
Y
Y
Isozaki
T
T
Maruyama
N
N
Akanuma
A
A
Komatsu
M
M
Jitsukawa
H
H
Matsubara
D000230:Adenocarcinoma / Q000097:blood / Q000235:genetics* / Q000473:pathology; D000368:Aged; D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor / Q000097:blood* / Q000235:genetics; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D004938:Esophageal Neoplasms / Q000097:blood / Q000235:genetics* / Q000473:pathology; D004947:Esophagus / Q000378:metabolism*; D055354:Exosomes / Q000378:metabolism; D005260:Female; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D006801:Humans; D008207:Lymphatic Metastasis; D008297:Male; D035683:MicroRNAs / Q000097:blood* / Q000235:genetics; D009362:Neoplasm Metastasis; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D011379:Prognosis; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000235:genetics; D060888:Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction
D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; C577308:MIRN1256 microRNA, human; D035683:MicroRNAs; D012333:RNA, Messenger