Expression and Significance of MicroRNA-183 in Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Abstract EN

Objective.

In our previous study, we found that some miRNAs were deregulated in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), including miR-183.

However, the expression of miR-183 in the progression of benign liver diseases to HCC and its correlation with clinicopathologic factors remain undefined.

Methods.

MiR-183 expression was measured in normal controls (NC) (n=21), chronic viral hepatitis B or C (CH) tissues (n=10), liver cirrhosis (LC) tissues (n=18), HCC tissues (n=92), and adjacent nontumor tissues (NT) (n=92) by quantitative real-time reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR).

Results.

The expression levels of miR-183 were significantly higher in HCC than in NT, LC, CH, and NL (P=0.001, P<0.001, P=0.011, P<0.001, resp.).

The upregulated miR-183 in HCC was correlated with TNM stage (P=0.042) and cirrhosis (P=0.025).

The Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed that miR-183 expression was not associated with the survival of HCC patients.

However, miR-183 yielded an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.808 with 59.8% sensitivity and 91.8% specificity in discriminating HCC from benign liver diseases (CH and LC) or NC.

Conclusions.

The upregulated miR-183 may associate with onset and progression of HCC, but not with the patient survival.

A further research is needed to determine the potential of miR-183 as biomarker for HCC.