title: miRNA-223 is a potential diagnostic and prognostic marker for osteosarcoma.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  MicroRNA-223 (miR-223) has been shown to be a potential diagnostic and prognostic marker for several cancers. In addition, miR-223 has been reported to suppress osteosarcoma cell proliferation in vitro. However, the clinical value of miR-223 is still unknown.
  
  
  METHODS
  We detected the expression of miR-223 expression in the serum of osteosarcoma patients and in osteosarcoma cancer cells using RT-PCR. We compared the serum expression of miR-223 with the clinicopathological characteristics and survival of osteosarcoma patients. Finally, we explored the role of miR-223 on the invasion of osteosarcoma cancer cells using cell migration and invasion assays.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We observed that the expression of miR-223 was significantly decreased in the serum of osteosarcoma patients and osteosarcoma cancer cells compared to healthy controls (P<0.01). Moreover, a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis indicated that serum miR-223 is a potential diagnostic marker of osteosarcoma with an area under the ROC curve (AUC) of 0.956. Importantly, the patients with a lower expression of miR-223 tended to have distant metastasis (P<0.001) and a more advanced clinical stage (P<0.001). In addition, the survival time of patients with low miR-223 expression was significantly shorter compared to patients with high miR-223 expression (P<0.001). Furthermore, we found that miR-223 could inhibit the migration and invasion of osteosarcoma cells.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  miR-223 might be related to the metastasis of osteosarcoma and could be used as a potential diagnostic and prognostic biomarker in osteosarcoma.
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopedics, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, No. 1, Jianshe East Road, Zhengzhou 450052, China.
authors.forename: Junbo
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Dong
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopedics, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, No. 1, Jianshe East Road, Zhengzhou 450052, China.
authors.forename: Yilin
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopedics, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, No. 1, Jianshe East Road, Zhengzhou 450052, China.
authors.forename: Wensheng
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Liao
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Oncology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanyang Medical College, No. 47, Chezhan South Road, Nanyang 473058, China.
authors.forename: Ran
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Oncology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanyang Medical College, No. 47, Chezhan South Road, Nanyang 473058, China.
authors.forename: Pei
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopedics, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, No. 1, Jianshe East Road, Zhengzhou 450052, China.
authors.forename: Limin
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wang
keywords: Diagnosis; Osteosarcoma; Prognosis; miR-223