Research Of Plasma Microrna-224Serving As Diagnostic And Prognostic Biomarker For Liver Cancer

ObjectiveTo detect the expression of microRNA-224(miR-224) in plasma and tumorous tissue of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients and investigate the correlation of miR-224expression between plasma and tumorous tissue and its clinical significance for diagnosis and prognostic evaluation of HCC patients.MethodSelected32HCC patients in the Hepatobiliary Surgery Department of Tumor Hospital, Guang xi Medical University as the experimental group, and other four types of cancer patients(gastric cancer, breast cancer, colon cancer, and rectal cancer), each group contained10cases as the control group, and20healthy volunteers as negative control group. The difference of miR-224expression between tumorous tissues and adjacent nontumorous tissues was compared, and the difference of miR-224expression between HCC plasma and healthy human plasma was also compared, the difference of plasma miR-224 expression among pre-operation, the first day and seventh day post-operation paired samples from HCC patients was also compared, the difference of plasma miR-224expression among HCC, gastric cancer, breast cancer, colon cancer, and rectal cancer was also compared, then the correlation of miR-224expression between plasma and tumorous tissue in HCC patients was analyzed, and the correlation between the relative expression of plasma miR-224and the clinicopathological features of HCC patients was also analyzed. The relative expression of miR-224in the tissues and plasma were detected by real-time fluorescent quantitative RT-PCR method which was based on2(-ΔΔCT).Results(1) The expression of miR-224in tumorous tissues was significantly higher than that in adjacent nontumorous tissues(P<0.05).(2) the expression of miR-224in HCC plasma was significantly higher than that in healthy human plasma, and decreased significantly after surgery(P<0.05).(3) There was a positive correlation of miR-224expression between plasma and tumorous tissue in HCC patients(P<0.05).(4) The expression of plasma miR-224in pre-operation of HCC patients was higher than that in the other four types of cancer patients(P<0.05).(5) The relative expression of plasma miR-224in HCC patients with cirrhosis, vascular invasion, multiple tumors, and TNM Ⅲ～Ⅳwas significantly higher(P<0.05). ConclusionThe expression of miR-224in HCC plasma is significantly higher than that in heathy human plasma. The expression of plasma miR-224in HCC patients is positively correlated with that in HCC tumorous tissue and the expression of plasma miR-224in HCC patients is positively correlated with cirrhosis, vascular invasion, multiple tumors, and TNM III-IV of HCC patients. The plasma miR-224may be a new biomarker for early diagnosis and prognostic evaluation of HCC patients.