title: Decreased serum microRNA-206 level predicts unfavorable prognosis in patients with melanoma.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  MicroRNA-206 (miR-206) acts as a tumor suppressor in melanoma cell lines. However, its clinical significance remains unclear. The aim of this study was to detect the serum level of miR-206 in patients with melanoma and to determine the feasibility of using it as a noninvasive prognostic biomarker.
  
  
  METHODS
  Expression levels of miR-206 in serum samples from 60 patients with melanoma and 30 healthy controls were detected by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (q-PCR).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Expression levels of miR-206 in serum samples from patients with melanoma were significantly lower than those in healthy controls (P<0.001). In addition, low serum miR-206 level was more frequently observed in patients with two or more metastatic sites (P=0.02). Its serum level was also significantly associated with the response to treatment (P=0.01). Moreover, melanoma patients with low serum miR-206 levels had higher clinical stage than those with high serum miR-206 levels (P<0.001). Furthermore, melanoma patients with low serum miR-206 level had a dramatically shorter 5-year overall and disease-free survival than those with high serum miR-206 level (both P=0.001). Multivariate analysis also identified the serum miR-206 level as an independent marker for both 5-year overall and disease-free survivals (both P=0.01) in patients with melanoma.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our results offer the convincing evidence that miR-206 may be implicated in aggressive progression of melanoma. More importantly, the serum level of miR-206 may be a noninvasive prognostic biomarker for the patients with melanoma.
authors.affiliation: Department of Dermatology, General Hospital of The Air Force Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Rong
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Tian
authors.affiliation: Department of Dermatology, Tangdu Hospital, The Fourth Military Medical University Xi'an, China.
authors.forename: Tao
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Dermatology, General Hospital of The Air Force Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Qiao
authors.affiliation: Department of Dermatology, General Hospital of The Air Force Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Mei
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.affiliation: Department of Burns and Plastic Surgery, Tangdu Hospital, The Fourth Military Medical University Xi'an, China.
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Li
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor / Q000097:blood*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D053208:Kaplan-Meier Estimate; D008297:Male; D008545:Melanoma / Q000097:blood / Q000235:genetics / Q000473:pathology*; D035683:MicroRNAs / Q000097:blood*; D008875:Middle Aged; D011379:Prognosis; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D060888:Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012878:Skin Neoplasms / Q000097:blood / Q000235:genetics / Q000473:pathology*
chemical_list: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; C546087:MIRN206 microRNA, human; D035683:MicroRNAs
keywords: MicroRNA-206; melanoma; metastasis; prognosis