Extracellular vesicles miR‐210 as a potential biomarker for diagnosis and survival prediction of oral squamous cell carcinoma patients

Abstract

Background The identification of early diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is an unmet clinical need. We hypothesized that extracellular vesicles miR‐210 expression (EV‐miR‐210) could be a potential biomarker for OSCC diagnosis and follow‐up. Methods The expression of EV‐miR‐210 was measured in the plasma of OSCC patients (n = 30) and compared to that of controls (n = 14). Results The median EV‐miR‐210 expression was significantly higher in OSCC patients compared to controls who had often, undetectable levels (p < 0.0001). We performed receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis for discriminating OSCC cases from controls. EV‐miR‐210 yielded an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.9513 with sensitivity 92.3% and specificity 86.6%. Kaplan‐Meier curves indicated that high EV‐miR‐210 expression was associated with worse 3 years’ survival (p < 0.05). Cox regression hazard model indicated that high EV‐miR‐210, G2, and G3 grading and pathological nodal status (pN)>1 were independent predictors of worse survival in OSCC patients. Conclusion These preliminary data suggest that EV‐mir‐210 may be a novel diagnostic and prognostic biomarker in OSCC.

Plasma Extracellular Vesicles-Derived miR-99a-5p: A Potential Biomarker to Predict Early Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma

“…Several studies have reported that plasma EVs miRNAs are potential biomarkers for the diagnosis and survival prediction of HNSCC patients [ 22 ]. A recent study found that increased plasma EVs miR-491-5p levels were associated with poor overall survival and disease-free survival in HNSCC patients.…”

Low levels of miR-34c in nasal washings as a candidate marker of aggressive disease in wood and leather exposed workers with sinonasal intestinal-type adenocarcinomas (ITACs)

“…Several studies demonstrated that miRNAs are involved in the development and progression of head and neck cancers either behaving as tumor-promoting miRNAs (oncomiRNAs) or as tumor suppressor miRNAs [ 11 , 12 ], but so far, only two studies addressed their relevance in ITACs [ [15] , [16] ].…”

“…The identification of early diagnostic biomarkers and novel molecular mechanisms underlying ITAC tumorigenesis is expected to improve the prognosis and the therapeutic approaches for this disease. Accumulating evidence suggests that circulating tumor cells, cell-free DNA, and non-coding RNAs (including long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) and microRNAs (miRNAs)), might be promising biomarkers in the early diagnosis and prognosis of cancer [ [7] , [8] , [9] , [10] , [11] , [12] ]. Thanks to their ability to concurrently target multiple genes involved in tumor development and progression, miRNA-based treatments, either as drugs or as drug targets, alone or in combination with chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy, showed promise to improve treatment strategies in some cancers [ 13 , 14 ].…”

Liquid Biopsy for Oral Cancer Diagnosis: Recent Advances and Challenges

“…Several studies have focused on molecules in EVs as possible candidates for liquid biopsy for oral cancer detection. Bigagli et al showed that miR-210 in serum-derived EVs is a potential target for early detection of OSCC with a specificity of 86.67% and sensitivity of 92.31% [ 22 ]; miR-24-3p in saliva-derived EVs could be used as a cancer biomarker, as reported by He et al [ 23 ]; and miR-24-3p expression showed high accuracy with an area under the curve (AUC) value of 0.738. Gai et al also identified miR-512-3p and miR-412-3p, which are up-regulated in saliva-derived EVs in OSCC patients compared to healthy individuals.…”