MiRNA-199a-3p: A potential circulating diagnostic biomarker for early gastric cancer.

BACKGROUND

Tumor-associated miRNAs have been detected in serum or plasma. We investigated whether plasma miRNA-199a-3p could be a potential circulating biomarker for early gastric cancer (EGC).

METHODS

By using real-time qRT-PCR, the expression of miRNA-199a-3p were compared between these pre-operative plasmas from 30 EGC patients and 70 healthy controls, and between these pre-operative and post-operative plasmas. Further validation was on an independent set of plasmas from 50 EGC patients.

RESULTS

The expression of miRNA-199a-3p (47.5 ± 6.5) in plasma in EGC patients was significantly higher than that from healthy controls (13.9 ± 2.7, P < 0.001) and gastric precancerous diseases (GPD) patients (19.2 ± 2.5, P = 0.004), respectively. Furthermore, the expression levels of miRNA-199a-3p (11.8 ± 2.9, P = 0.012) in the post-operative plasmas were significantly reduced when compared to the pre-operative plasmas. With respect of clinicopathological characteristics, the expression of miRNA-199a-3p in plasma was not associated with the depth of tumor invasion. Moreover, the AUC of the expression of miRNA-199a-3p in plasma for EGC diagnosis was 0.818, which was significantly higher than that of combined tumor markers (0.556). The sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of miRNA-199a-3p expression in plasma for EGC diagnosis were 76%, 74%, and 75%, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS

Plasma miRNA-199a-3p could be a novel potential diagnostic biomarkers for EGC.