PLoS ONE (Jan 2021)

Serum levels of circulating microRNA-107 are elevated in patients with early-stage HCC.

  • Sven H Loosen,
  • Mirco Castoldi,
  • Markus S Jördens,
  • Sanchary Roy,
  • Mihael Vucur,
  • Jennis Kandler,
  • Linda Hammerich,
  • Raphael Mohr,
  • Frank Tacke,
  • Tom F Ulmer,
  • Ulf P Neumann,
  • Tom Luedde,
  • Christoph Roderburg

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0247917
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 16, no. 3
p. e0247917

Abstract

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BackgroundEarly detection of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), the most common primary liver malignancy, is crucial to offer patients a potentially curative treatment strategy such as surgical resection or liver transplantation (LT). However, easily accessible biomarkers facilitating an early diagnosis of HCC as well as a reliable risk prediction are currently missing. The microRNA(miR)-107 has recently been described as a driver of HCC in both murine and human HCC but data on circulating miR-107 in HCC patients are scarce. In the present study, we evaluated a potential diagnostic and/or prognostic role of circulating miR-107 in patients undergoing tumor resection or LT for early-stage HCC.MethodsThe Kmplot bioinformatic tool was used to query publicly available databases (including TCGA, GEO and EGA) in order to analyse the prognostic value of tumoral miR-107 expression in HCC patients (n = 372). Serum levels of miR-107 were measured by qPCR in n = 45 HCC patients undergoing surgical tumor resection (n = 37) or LT (n = 8) as well as n = 18 healthy control samples. Results were correlated with clinical data.ResultsA high tumoral expression of miR-107 was associated with a significantly better overall survival compared to patients with low miR-107 expression levels (HR 0.69, 95% CI 0.48-0.99, p = 0.041). In addition, serum levels of miR-107 were significantly higher in HCC patients when compared to healthy controls. However, miR-107 serum levels in HCC patients were independent of different disease etiology, tumor stage or tumor grading. HCC patients with baseline miR-107 expression levels above a calculated ideal prognostic cut-off value (9.82) showed a clear trend towards an impaired overall survival (p = 0.119).ConclusionTumoral miR-107 expression levels are a potential prognostic marker in early stage HCC. Furthermore, we describe a potential role of circulating miR-107 levels as a diagnostic biomarker in patients with early-stage HCC.