title: Diagnostic and prognostic potentials of microRNA-27a in osteosarcoma.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Growing evidence suggest that the microRNA (miR)-23a/24-2/27a cluster may play a crucial role in mammary tumorigenesis and act as a novel class of oncogenes. Among these members, miR-27a has been reported to promote proliferation, migration and invasion in human osteosarcoma cells. The aim of this study was to detect the serum levels of miR-27a in osteosarcoma patients and to investigate its associations with clinicopathological features and prognosis.
  
  
  METHODS
  miR-27a levels in sera from 166 osteosarcoma patients and 60 healthy controls were detected by real-time quantitative RT-PCR. Then, the associations of serum miR-27a level with clinicopathological factors or survival of osteosarcoma patients were further evaluated.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Compared to healthy controls, the serum levels of miR-27a were significantly increased in osteosarcoma patients (P<0.001). Importantly, miR-27a could efficiently screen osteosarcoma patients from healthy controls (Area under receiver operating characteristic curve, AUC=0.867). Then, high miR-27a expression was more frequently occurred in osteosarcoma patients with advanced clinical stage (P=0.001), positive distant metastasis (P=0.01) and poor response to chemotherapy (P=0.008). In Kaplan-Meier survival analysis, high miR-27a expression was a significant indicator for poor overall survival (P=0.006) as well as poor disease-free survival (P=0.01). Furthermore, multivariate analysis demonstrated that miR-27a expression was an independent and significant prognostic factor to predict overall survival (P=0.01) and disease-free survival (P=0.03).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  miR-27a expression may be elevated in sera of osteosarcoma patients and in turn contributes to aggressive progression of this malignancy. Detection of serum miR-27a levels may have clinical potentials as a non-invasive diagnostic/prognostic biomarker for osteosarcoma patients.
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopaedics, Xuhui Central Hospital, Shanghai, 200031, China.
authors.forename: Jie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Tang
authors.affiliation: Department of Joint Center, Changzheng Hospital, the Second Military Medical University, No. 440, North Chengdu Road, Shanghai, 200003, China.
authors.forename: Hui
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopaedics, Xuhui Central Hospital, Shanghai, 200031, China.
authors.forename: Haikang
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Cai
authors.affiliation: Department of Joint Center, Changzheng Hospital, the Second Military Medical University, No. 440, North Chengdu Road, Shanghai, 200003, China. Electronic address: haishan_wu@126.com.
authors.forename: Haishan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wu
mesh_terms: D018572:Disease-Free Survival; D005260:Female; D015972:Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D035683:MicroRNAs / Q000097:blood / Q000378:metabolism*; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D012516:Osteosarcoma / Q000097:blood / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000235:genetics* / Q000473:pathology; D011379:Prognosis
chemical_list: C531388:MIRN27 microRNA, human; D035683:MicroRNAs
keywords: Diagnosis; Osteosarcoma; Prognosis; Real-time quantitative RT-PCR; Serum; microRNA-27a