MicroRNAs as biomarkers for the progression and prognosis of colon carcinoma

作者:Zhang, Hui; Wang, Zhuo; Ma, Rong; Wu, Jianzhong; Feng, Jifeng*
来源:International Journal of Molecular Medicine, 2018, 42(4): 2080-2088.
DOI:10.3892/ijmm.2018.3792

摘要

Early detection is critical for the treatment of colon carcinoma. However, current biomarkers for its diagnosis and prognosis are insufficient and improvement is required. Aberrantly expressed microRNAs (miRNAs/miRs) in colon carcinoma have been identified to function as potential diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers. In the present study, 245 differentially expressed miRNAs between colon carcinoma and normal tissues were identified by a bioinformatics analysis of a dataset from The Cancer Genome Atlas. A six-miRNA (miR-149, miR-3189, miR-3677, miR-3917, miR-4999 and miR-6854) prognostic prediction system was established, which is able to independently and effectively predict the prognosis of colon carcinoma patients [P<0.001, area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC)=0.763]. Furthermore, the six miRNAs were highly correlated with the tumor-nodes-metastasis (TNM) stage and were able to distinguish between different stages (high vs. low TNM stage, P<0.001). Of note, combination of the six-miRNA signature and TNM stage provides an improved prediction of the patient's prognosis (AUC=0.797). Functional enrichment analysis revealed the possible mechanistic involvement of these predictive miRNAs in cancer-associated biological processes and pathways. Taken together, the present study demonstrated the promising potential of the novel six-miRNA model as an independent factor for the prediction of the progression and prognosis of colon carcinoma.