Circulating miR-378 in plasma: a reliable, haemolysis-independent biomarker for colorectal cancer

Abstract

Background:Plasma circulating tumour-specific microRNAs (miRNAs) are promising biomarkers of tumour presence and recurrence, especially for diseases whose best chance of successful treatment requires early diagnosis and timely surgery of an already malignant but not yet invasive tumour, such as colorectal cancer (CRC).Methods:Expression levels of miRNAs previously found to be differently expressed in tumour vs normal colon tissues were investigated by quantitative real-time PCR in plasma from CRC patients and from healthy donors and confirmed in independent case control series. The validated miRNAs were also measured after surgery. Analyses were repeated on the subsets of haemolysis-free samples.Results:We identified four miRNAs differently expressed between the compared groups, two (miR-21 and miR-378) of which were validated. miR-378 expression decreased in non-relapsed patients 4–6 months after surgery and miR-378 ability to discriminate CRC patients from healthy individuals was not influenced by haemolysis levels of plasma samples.Conclusion:The miRNA analysis on plasma samples represents a useful non-invasive tool to assess CRC presence as well as tumour-free status at follow-up. Plasma levels of miR-378 could be used to discriminate CRC patients from healthy individuals, irrespective of the level of haemoglobin of plasma samples.

XRCC1 Gene Polymorphisms and miR-21 Expression in Patients with Colorectal Carcinoma

“…Bastaminejad et al [23] reported that miR-21 expression levels in serum were significantly elevated in CRC cases with an 86.05% sensitivity and 72.97% specificity. A meta-analysis that included articles published from 2009 to 2014 where the participants include Caucasians, Asians, and a few Africans showed that circulating miR-21 is useful as an early diagnostic biomarker for several malignant tumors, including CRC [24,25]. Moreover, Sheng et al [26] found that the protein kinase/phosphatase/phosphatidyl-inositol kinase (AKT/PTEN/ PI3K) signaling pathway is intimately linked with many malignant tumors and their progression, drug resistance, immunity, angiogenesis, and metastasis [27,28].…”

The clinical utility of microRNA-21 as novel biomarker for diagnosing human cancers

“…For example, Selaru et al reported that miR-21 in diagnosing cholangiocarcinoma had a remarkable high sensitivity and specificity of 95.0 and 100 %, respectively [33]. However, Zanutto et al found that the sensitivity and specificity of plasma-based miR-21 for detecting colorectal cancer were relatively low (58 and 58 %, respectively) [41]. These inconsistent conclusions lead us to conduct this meta-analysis, aiming at evaluating the diagnostic value of miR-21 for discriminating cancer patients from controls.…”

Lack of association between an insertion/deletion polymorphism in IL1A and risk of colorectal cancer

“…By binding to the 3' UTRs of target genes, miRNAs play important roles in tumor pathogenesis. The expression of miR-378 is known to be downregulated in both plasma and tumor tissue in CRC patients (Zanutto et al, 2014;Zhang et al, 2014a). Overexpression of miR-378 can inhibit cell growth and invasion, while its downregulation may promote these processes (Zhang et al, 2014a), suggesting that this miRNA may function as a tumor suppressor in CRC.…”