High Expression of MicroRNA-200a/b Indicates Potential Diagnostic and Prognostic Biomarkers in Epithelial Ovarian Cancer

Abstract

Objective: To detect the expression levels of microRNA-200a/b (miR-200a/b) in tumor tissues and serum of patients with epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) and to explore its clinical significance.

Methods: A retrospective selection of 30 cases of benign ovarian disease or healthy physical examination (control group) and 55 cases of EOC patients. Real-time quantitative PCR was used to detect the expression level of miR-200a/b in tumor tissues and serum, and the miR-200a/b expresses relevance in the two types of samples were evaluated at the same time. Receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) and Kaplan-Meier survival analysis were used to evaluate the diagnostic value of miR-200a/b expression and its influence on prognosis, respectively.

Results: The serum and tissue miR-200a/b expression levels in EOC patients were higher than those in the control group (P < 0.001), and there was a significant positive correlation between serum and tissue miR-200a/b expression (R ² = 0.9419, P < 0.001 and R ² = 0.9605, P < 0.001). ROC analysis showed that the expression of serum miR-200a/b can distinguish EOC patients from the control group. In addition, there were significant differences in the TNM stage, tumor differentiation, and lymph node metastasis between the miR-200a/b high- and low-expression groups (P < 0.05). Kaplan-Meier survival analysis found that the overall survival and disease-free survival of patients with high miR-200a/b expression were shorter than those of patients with low miR-200a/b expression (P < 0.05).

Conclusion: Upregulation of miR-200a/b expression is a common molecular event in EOC patients, and miR-200a/b can be used as a noninvasive biomarker for the diagnosis and prognosis of EOC.

Figure 1

miR-200a/b expression in serum and tumor tissues of EOC patients. (a) The expression level of serum miR-200a/b in healthy controls and EOC patients. (b) The correlation between miR-200a and miR-200b expression in serum. (c) The expression level of miR-200a/b in tumor tissues of healthy controls and EOC patients. (d) The correlation between miR-200a and miR-200b expression in tumor tissues.

Figure 2

The correlation of miR-200a/b expression between serum and tumor tissues. (a) miR-200a; (b) miR-200b.

Figure 3

The diagnostic value of miR-200a/b in (a, b) tumor tissues and (c, d) serum of EOC patients. (a) miR-200a from tissue; (b) miR-200b from tissue; (c) miR-200a from serum; (d) miR-200b from serum.

Figure 4

Kaplan-Meier survival curves of the EOC patients. (a) Effect of miR-200a expression on OS in EOC patients. (b) Effect of miR-200a expression on DFS in EOC patients. (c) Effect of miR-200b expression on OS in EOC patients. (d) Effect of miR-200b expression on DFS in EOC patients.