Increased miR-25 expression in serum of gastric cancer patients is correlated with CA19-9 and acts as a potential diagnostic biomarker

Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:sec id="j_med-2017-0040_s_023_w2aab2b8ab1b7b1aab1c15b1Aa"><jats:title>Objective</jats:title><jats:p>To evaluate miR-25 expression in serum of gastric cancer (GC) patients and whether it can be a potential biomarker for GC diagnosis.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec id="j_med-2017-0040_s_024_w2aab2b8ab1b7b1aab1c15b2Aa"><jats:title>Methods</jats:title><jats:p>Forty one pathology confirmed GC patients and 41 healthy controls were included in this study. 10 mL peripheral venous blood were collected from GC patients and healthy controls. miR-25 relative expression and CA19-9 level in serum of GC patients and healthy controls were measured by real-time reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) and enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), respectively. The diagnostic sensitivity, specificity and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of serum miR-25 and CA19-9 were calculated by STATA11.0 software.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec id="j_med-2017-0040_s_025_w2aab2b8ab1b7b1aab1c15b3Aa"><jats:title>Results</jats:title><jats:p>The relative expression of miR-25 was 0.47±0.53 and 0.05±0.36 in serum of GC patients and healthy controls respectively with significant statistical difference (P&lt;0.05). The serum level of CA19-9 for GC patients and healthy controls were 11.91±6.17 U/mL and 7.40±3.97 U/mL, indicating GC patients were much higher than those of healthy controls (P&lt;0.05). The diagnostic sensitivity and specificity were 78.05% and 60.98% with the cut-off value of 0.32 for serum miR-25. Under this cut-off value, the area under the ROC curve was 0.75. For serum CA19-9, the diagnostic sensitivity and specificity were 70.73% and 56.10% with the cut-off value of 9.22 U/mL. Under this cut-off value, the area under the ROC curve was 0.73 with the 95% confidence interval of 0.62-0.84. Positive correlation was found between serum miR-25 relative expression and CA19-9 concentration of GC patients (r=0.75, P&lt;0.05).</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec id="j_med-2017-0040_s_026_w2aab2b8ab1b7b1aab1c15b4Aa"><jats:title>Conclusion</jats:title><jats:p>According to our present study, serum miR-25 was elevated in GC patients which may serve as a diagnostic biomarker for GC.</jats:p></jats:sec>