Value of Serum miRNA-96-5p and miRNA-99a-5p as Diagnostic Biomarkers for Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Amal F Gharib; Emad M Eed; Amany S Khalifa; Nermin Raafat; Somaia Shehab-Eldeen; Hany R Alwakeel; Ehab Darwiesh; Abdallah Essa

doi:10.2147/IJGM.S354842

Value of Serum miRNA-96-5p and miRNA-99a-5p as Diagnostic Biomarkers for Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Int J Gen Med. 2022 Mar 3:15:2427-2436. doi: 10.2147/IJGM.S354842. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Amal F Gharib¹, Emad M Eed¹, Amany S Khalifa², Nermin Raafat³, Somaia Shehab-Eldeen^{4

5}, Hany R Alwakeel⁶, Ehab Darwiesh⁷, Abdallah Essa^{4

5}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Clinical Laboratories Sciences, College of Applied Medical Sciences, Taif University, Taif, 21944, Saudi Arabia.
² Clinical Pathology Department, Faculty of Medicine, Menoufia University, Shebin El-Kom, Egypt.
³ Department of Medical Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, Zagazig University, Zagazig, Egypt.
⁴ Tropical Medicine Department, Faculty of Medicine, Menoufia University, Shebin El-Kom, Egypt.
⁵ Department of Internal Medicine, College of Medicine, King Faisal University, Al-Ahsaa, Saudi Arabia.
⁶ Department of Hepatology, National Liver Institute, Menoufia University, Shebin El-Kom, Egypt.
⁷ Department of Tropical Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Zagazig University, Zagazig, Egypt.

Abstract

Purpose: Circulatory microRNAs (miRNAs) have the potential to be employed as markers for cancer detection and as prognostic tools for disease management. As a result, our goal was to explore the effectiveness of serum miRNA-96-5p and miRNA-99a-5p as diagnostic tools in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

Patients and methods: Blood samples were collected from 55 patients with HCV-induced HCC, 55 patients with HCV-induced liver cirrhosis, and 55 healthy controls. The expression levels of miRNA-96-5p and miRNA-99a-5p were measured using quantitative RT-PCR.

Results: miRNA-96-5p expression levels were increased in HCC patient sera, while miRNA-99a-5p levels were reduced. According to ROC curve analysis, using a combination of circulating miRNA-96-5p, miRNA-99a-5-, and alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) improves the accuracy of diagnoses for HCC, with an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.97, compared to AUCs of 0.82, 0.86, and 0.73, respectively, for the individual biomarkers. Furthermore, the present data suggested that higher serum miRNA-96-5p levels were linked to larger tumors and metastasis, whereas lower serum miRNA-99a-5p levels were exclusively linked to HCC metastasis.

Conclusion: Using miRNA-96-5p and miRNA-99a-5p in combination with AFP increased both sensitivity and specificity for the diagnosis of HCC. Furthermore, serum levels were linked to tumor size and metastasis. These findings suggested that serum miRNA-96-5p and miRNA-99a-5p could be used as non-invasive biomarkers for the diagnosis of HCC.

Keywords: biomarkers; hepatocellular carcinoma; microRNA-96-5p; microRNA-99a-5p.

Grants and funding

None.