Potentially predictive microRNAs of gastric cancer with metastasis to lymph node

AIM: To detect the expression of 60 microRNAs in gastric cancer tissues and find new predictive biomarkers of gastric cancer with metastasis. METHODS: The expressions of 60 candidate miRNAs in 30 gastric cancer tissues and paired normal tissues were detected by stem-loop real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction. After primary screening of miRNAs expression, 5 selected miRNAs were further testified in another 22 paired gastric tissues. Based on the expression level of miRNAs and the status of metastasis to lymph node (LN), receiver-operating-characteristic (ROC) curve were used to evaluate their ability in predicting the status of metastasis to LN. RESULTS: Thirty-eight miRNAs expressions in gastric cancer tissues were significantly different from those in paired normal tissues (P < 0.01). Among them, 31 miRNAs were found to be up-expressed in cancer tissues and 1 miRNAs were down-expressed 1.5 fold vs paired normal gastric tissue. Five microRNAs (miR-125a-3p, miR-133b, miR-143, miR-195 and miR-212) were differently expressed between different metastatic groups in 30 gastric cancer biopsies (P < 0.05). Partial correlation analysis showed that hsa-mir-212 and hsamir-195 were correlated with the status of metastasis to LN in spite of age, gender, tumor location, tumor size, depth of invasion and cell differentiation. ROC analysis indicated that miR-212 and miR-195 have better sensitivities (84.6% and 69.2%, respectively) and specificities (both 100%) in distinguishing biopsies with metastasis to LN from biopsies without metastasis to LN. CONCLUSION: miR-212 and miR-195 could be independent biomarkers in predicting the gastric cancer with metastasis to LN. (C) 2011 Baishideng. All rights reserved.