Park Jong-Lyul, Kim Seon-Kyu, Jeon Sora, Jung Chan-Kwon, Kim Yong-Sung
Genome Editing Research Center, Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Daejeon 34141, Korea.
Personalized Genomic Medicine Research Center, Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Daejeon 34141, Korea.
Cancers (Basel). 2021 Feb 5;13(4):632. doi: 10.3390/cancers13040632.
The challenge in managing thyroid nodules is to accurately diagnose the minority of those with malignancy. We aimed to identify diagnostic and prognostic miRNA markers for thyroid nodules. In a discovery cohort, we identified 20 candidate miRNAs to differentiate between noninvasive follicular thyroid neoplasms with papillary-like nuclear features (NIFTP) and papillary thyroid carcinomas (PTC) by using the high-throughput small RNA sequencing method. We then selected three miRNAs (miR-136, miR-21, and miR-127) that were differentially expressed between the PTC follicular variant and other variants in The Cancer Genome Atlas data. High expression of three miRNAs differentiated thyroid cancer from nonmalignant tumors, with an area under curve (AUC) of 0.76-0.81 in an independent cohort. In patients with differentiated thyroid cancer, the high-level expression of the three miRNAs was an independent indicator for both distant metastases and recurrent or persistent disease. In patients with PTC, a high expression of miRNAs was associated with an aggressive histologic variant, extrathyroidal extension, distant metastasis, or recurrent or persistent disease. Three miRNAs may be used as diagnostic markers for differentiating thyroid cancers from benign tumors and tumors with extremely low malignant potential (NIFTP), as well as prognostic markers for predicting the risk of recurrent/persistent disease for differentiated thyroid cancer.
甲状腺结节管理中的挑战在于准确诊断少数恶性结节。我们旨在识别甲状腺结节的诊断和预后miRNA标志物。在一个发现队列中，我们通过高通量小RNA测序方法，鉴定出20种候选miRNA，以区分具有乳头状核特征的非侵袭性滤泡性甲状腺肿瘤（NIFTP）和乳头状甲状腺癌（PTC）。然后，我们在癌症基因组图谱数据中选择了三种在PTC滤泡变体与其他变体之间差异表达的miRNA（miR-136、miR-21和miR-127）。这三种miRNA的高表达可将甲状腺癌与非恶性肿瘤区分开来，在一个独立队列中的曲线下面积（AUC）为0.76 - 0.81。在分化型甲状腺癌患者中，这三种miRNA的高水平表达是远处转移以及复发或持续性疾病的独立指标。在PTC患者中，miRNA的高表达与侵袭性组织学变体、甲状腺外扩展、远处转移或复发或持续性疾病相关。三种miRNA可用作区分甲状腺癌与良性肿瘤以及极低恶性潜能肿瘤（NIFTP）的诊断标志物，以及预测分化型甲状腺癌复发/持续性疾病风险的预后标志物。
