title: Potential diagnostic value of miR-155 in serum from lung adenocarcinoma patients.
abstract: Recent studies have demonstrated that microRNAs (miRNAs) are stably detectable in plasma/serum. The expression profile of miR-21 and miR-155 was evaluated in the present study, since miR-21 is frequently reported as highly expressed in several types of cancers, while miR-155 was also found to be significantly expressed in lung cancer cell lines. Using in vitro studies, we found that miR-155 could be a candidate plasmatic biomarker for diagnosing lung cancer. We assessed the differences in levels of miR-21, miR-155, carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and carbohydrate antigen 125 (CA-125) expression in serum samples between lung cancer patients and healthy controls. We estimating the clinical diagnostic value of miR-155 independently and combined with CA-125 and/or CEA levels. The present study consisted of three parts: i) confirmation of the stable expression of miR-155 in the patient serum samples using quantitative PCR; ii) confirmation of higher miR-155, CEA and CA-125 levels in the patient serum samples when compared with levels in the normal controls by quantitative PCR; iii) evaluation of miR-155, CEA and CA-125 concentrations in serum sampes for tumor diagnosis of lung adenocarcinoma via ROC (receiver-operating characteristic) analysis. The results showed that i) expression of miR-155 was significantly higher in the serum of lung adenocarcinoma patients than that in normal controls (P<0.05); ii) testing results of serum miR-155 levels showed a much higher sensitivity (0.722) than that for CA-125 or CEA; iii) CEA associated with CA-125 had the highest Youden's index (0.639) in all terms of combinations; and iv) combined with CA-125 testing, miR-155 received a competitive sensitivity (0.889) and specificity (0.688) for diagnosing lung adenocarcinoma (OOP=14.88). In conclusion, endogenous miR-155 stably existed in patient serum and could be sensitively and specifically measured. Overexpression of miR-155 in serum specimens could constitute a diagnostic marker for the early detection of lung adenocarcinoma.
authors.affiliation: Division of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, Henan 450052, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Feng
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.forename: Jingxia
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.forename: Huaqi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Guojun
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D000230:Adenocarcinoma / Q000097:blood / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000235:genetics; D000077192:Adenocarcinoma of Lung; D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor / Q000097:blood* / Q000235:genetics; D018394:CA-125 Antigen / Q000097:blood; D002272:Carcinoembryonic Antigen / Q000097:blood; D055088:Early Detection of Cancer; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000097:blood / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000235:genetics; D008297:Male; D035683:MicroRNAs / Q000097:blood* / Q000235:genetics; D008875:Middle Aged
chemical_list: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; D018394:CA-125 Antigen; D002272:Carcinoembryonic Antigen; C524942:MIRN155 microRNA, human; C524940:MIRN21 microRNA, human; D035683:MicroRNAs