Matboli Marwa, Shafei Ayman E, Ali Mahmoud A, Ashry Ahmed M, Kamal Kamal M, Agag Mohammed Ali, Reda Ibrahim, Tash Eman Fathy, Ali Marwa
Medical Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department, Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt.
Armed Forces College of Medicine, Cairo, Egypt.
J Cell Biochem. 2019 May;120(5):7711-7724. doi: 10.1002/jcb.28045. Epub 2018 Nov 13.
Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are a newly validated type of noncoding RNAs recently found to be deregulated in several human cancers. More accurate and specific noninvasive biomarkers are strongly needed for better diagnosis and prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). We performed a bioinformatics analysis to retrieve a novel panel of circRNAs potentially relevant to HCC. We examined their expression in the sera of 68 patients with HCC, 60 patients with chronic hepatitis C, and 36 healthy controls using quantitative polymerase chain reaction. We examined the performance characteristics of the selected circRNA biomarker panel in comparison with alpha-fetoprotein (AFP). In addition, we performed a survival analysis to correlate between their expression levels and patient survival. The circRNAs hsa_circ _00224 and hsa_circ _00520 showed a strong biomarker potential with relatively high sensitivities and specificities compared with AFP. The combined panel including the three circRNAs showed superior performance characteristics relative to those of AFP. The median follow-up period was 26 months. hsa_circ_00520 expression has been shown to be associated with relapse-free survival (P < 0.005). circRNAs hsa_circ_00156, hsa_circ_000224, and hsa_circ_000520 are novel potential biomarkers of high sensitivity and specificity, which could potentially be used in the diagnosis of HCC.
环状RNA（circRNAs）是一种新确认的非编码RNA，最近发现其在多种人类癌症中表达失调。肝细胞癌（HCC）的更好诊断和预后强烈需要更准确、特异的非侵入性生物标志物。我们进行了一项生物信息学分析，以检索一组可能与HCC相关的新型circRNAs。我们使用定量聚合酶链反应检测了68例HCC患者、60例慢性丙型肝炎患者和36例健康对照者血清中它们的表达。我们将所选的circRNA生物标志物组与甲胎蛋白（AFP）进行比较，检测其性能特征。此外，我们进行了生存分析，以关联它们的表达水平与患者生存情况。与AFP相比，circRNAs hsa_circ_00224和hsa_circ_00520表现出较强的生物标志物潜力，具有相对较高的敏感性和特异性。包括这三种circRNAs的联合组相对于AFP表现出更优的性能特征。中位随访期为26个月。已证明hsa_circ_00520表达与无复发生存相关（P < 0.005）。circRNAs hsa_circ_00156、hsa_circ_000224和hsa_circ_000520是具有高敏感性和特异性的新型潜在生物标志物，可能用于HCC的诊断。
