Background: MicroRNAs (miRNAs), with noticeable stability and unique expression pattern in plasma of patients with various diseases, are powerful non-invasive biomarkers for cancer detection including endometrial cancer (EC).
Objective: The objective of this study was to identify promising miRNA biomarkers in plasma to assist the clinical screening of EC.
Methods: A total of 93 EC and 79 normal control (NC) plasma samples were analyzed using Quantitative Real-time Polymerase Chain Reaction (qRT-PCR) in this four-stage experiment. The receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) analysis was conducted to evaluate the diagnostic value. Additionally, the expression features of the identified miRNAs were further explored in tissues and plasma exosomes samples.
Results: The expression of miR-142-3p, miR-146a-5p, and miR-151a-5p was significantly overexpressed in the plasma of EC patients compared with NCs. Areas under the ROC curve of the 3-miRNA signature were 0.729, 0.751, and 0.789 for the training, testing, and external validation phases, respectively. The diagnostic performance of the identified signature proved to be stable in the three public datasets and superior to the other miRNA biomarkers in EC diagnosis. Moreover, the expression of miR-151a-5p was significantly elevated in EC plasma exosomes.
Conclusions: A signature consisting of 3 plasma miRNAs was identified and showed potential for the non-invasive diagnosis of EC.
Keywords: Plasma microRNA; diagnostic biomarker; endometrial carcinoma; qRT-PCR.