Overexpression of miR-223 correlates with tumor metastasis and poor prognosis in patients with colorectal cancer

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to investigate microRNA-223 (miR-223) expression in colorectal cancer (CRC) and its relationship with tumorigenesis and disease prognosis. Quantitative real-time PCR was used to measure levels of miR-223 in tumor samples and adjacent non-cancerous tissues from 62 patients undergoing radical resection for the treatment of CRC. The associations between miR-223 expression and patient age, sex, as well as clinicopathologic parameters, such as tumor size, differentiation, location, invasion depth, metastasis, tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) stage, and overall patient survival, were analyzed by Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis tests. Kaplan-Meier method and Cox proportional hazards regression analyses were performed to estimate the prognostic factors for patient survival prediction. The expression of miR-223 was significantly upregulated in CRC tissues compared with adjacent non-cancerous tissues (P < 0.05). This overexpression was associated with TNM stage and lymph node and distant metastases, (P < 0.05). Moreover, Kaplan-Meier analysis demonstrated that patients with high miR-223 expression had a poorer overall survival (OS) than those with low miR-223 expression (P = 0.002). Univariate analysis revealed a statistically significant correlation between OS and miR-223 level, histology grade, metastasis and TNM stage (P < 0.001). Furthermore, miR-223 levels and histology grade were independently associated with OS (HR 0.204, 95 % CI 0.101-0.415, P < 0.05 and HR 2.252, 95 % CI 1.429-3.546, P < 0.05, respectively). The overexpression of miR-223 may play an important role in the progression of CRC and can be used as an independent factor to determine CRC prognosis.

MicroRNA-223 Targeting STIM1 Inhibits the Biological Behavior of Breast Cancer

“…A recent study also confirmed that miR-223 induced by radiotherapy could prevent the relapse of breast cancer [32]. However, other researchers found that overexpression of miR-223 was positively correlated with tumor recurrence and metastasis in patients with colorectal cancer [33], hepatocellular cancer [34] and non-small cell lung cancer [35]. Several in vitro studies also verified that miRNA-223 promoted lung cancer, ovarian cancer and prostate cancer cells invasion via targeting EPB41L3 [36] , SOX11 [37] and SEPT6 [38] respectively.…”

Down-regulation of miR-223 reverses epithelial-mesenchymal transition in gemcitabine-resistant pancreatic cancer cells

“…A wealth of evidence has emerged that miR-223 plays an oncogenic role in the development and progression of human cancers. In support of the function of miR-223, it has been observed that overexpression of miR-223 was found and correlated with tumor metastasis and poor prognosis in colorectal cancer patients [ 28 , 29 ]. Moreover, upregulated miR-223 was also responsible for the poorer prognosis of gastric cancer [ 30 ].…”

MiR-223-5p works as an oncomiR in vulvar carcinoma byTP63suppression

“…In fact, miR-223 arose as a recognized tumor invasiveness and metastasis predictor in several tumor types: its expression was correlated with metastasis in breast [19], gastric [20], colorectal [24] and hepatocellular [25] carcinomas, and osteosarcoma [26]. Likewise, miR-223 was correlated with recurrence in ovarian [22] and hepatocellular [23] carcinomas.…”

“…Similarly, Li et al (2011) [24] shown that miR-223 was able to stimulate non-metastatic gastric cancer cells to invade by targeting a tumor suppressor gene named EPB41L3 . Wei et al (2014) [31] also found accelerated invasive ability of Prostate Cancer cell lines when miR-223-3p were artificially added to the cells, but in this case through SEPT6 targeting.…”