Background: Lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD), with an increasing morbidity and mortality globally, is the most common histological subtype of lung cancer (LC). Early diagnosis of LUAD can significantly prolong survival time. Multiple researches have revealed that circulating miRNAs might be used as promising biomarkers for early detection of LUAD
Material and Methods: A meta-analysis was conducted to find circulating miRNAs for early diagnosis of LUAD and summarized their diagnostic values based on GEO database. Further, by bioinformatics analysis we predicted the target genes of circulating miRNAs owning statistically significant, and explored the molecular regulation mechanisms and biological processes of the target genes in the pathogenetic of LUAD.
Results: overall, six datasets were eligible, information on original expression levels of circulating miR-21, miR-155, miR-210, miR-126, miR-486, miR-182, and miR-17 extracted independently by two reviewers. Finally, we found circulating miR-210 had good diagnostic efficacy for LUAD detection, the combined AUC value was 0.83. We then predicted 480 overlapped genes of miR-210 at least 5 of 11 databases. Bioinformatics analysis showed statistically significant GO analysis 38 items and KEGG pathways 21 items. Response to hypoxia may be the mainly involved biological process of miR-210 in LUAD. Nine hub genes (FBXO, FBXL, MGRN1, ATG7, CUL3, RAB, ADAMTS, SEMA, THBS2) were obtained by construct PPI network.
Conclusions: our study implied that circulating miR-210 may be a promising noninvasive biomarker for early detection of LUAD, but further researches are needed to validate the promising results and to identify specific biological processes and target genes.