miR-500a-3p is a Potential Prognostic Biomarker in Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Jianting Long; Baoxian Liu; Zhijia Yao; Huiwen Weng; Heping Li; Chunlin Jiang; Shi Fang

doi:10.2147/IJGM.S340629

miR-500a-3p is a Potential Prognostic Biomarker in Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Int J Gen Med. 2022 Feb 21:15:1891-1899. doi: 10.2147/IJGM.S340629. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Jianting Long^#¹, Baoxian Liu^#², Zhijia Yao¹, Huiwen Weng¹, Heping Li¹, Chunlin Jiang^{3

4}, Shi Fang⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Medicinal Oncology, The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, 510080, People's Republic of China.
² Department of Medical Ultrasound, The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, 510080, People's Republic of China.
³ Department of General Surgery, Fifth Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, 510799, People's Republic of China.
⁴ Guangzhou Key Laboratory of Enhanced Recovery After Abdominal Surgery, Fifth Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, 510799, People's Republic of China.
⁵ Department of Clinical Nutrition, The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, 510080, People's Republic of China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Purpose: miR-500a-3p has been extensively reported to be implicated in the development and progression in several human cancer types. This study aimed to investigate the diagnostic and prognostic significance of miR-500a-3p as a biomarker in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

Methods: miR-500a-3p expression was evaluated by in situ hybridization (ISH) and real-time PCR in 10 adjacent normal tissues (ANT), 21 liver fibrosis tissues, and 110 HCC tissues. Statistical analysis was used to investigate the correlation of miR-500a-3p expression with clinicopathological features in HCC patients. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis was performed to evaluate the prognostic significance of miR-500a-3p in overall survival and recurrence-free survival in HCC patients.

Results: In this study, we found that expression levels of miR-500a-3p were enhanced in HCC tissues. High miR-500a-3p levels were positively correlated with multiple clinicopathological features, including advanced clinical stage, distant metastatic status, increased AFP levels and poor tumor differentiation degree. More importantly, high miR-500a-3p levels predicted poor overall survival and early recurrence in HCC patients. Finally, a strong and positive correlation of miR-500a-3p mRNA expression with ISH staining scores was observed in clinical HCC tissues.

Conclusion: Our findings suggest that miR-500a-3p might be used as a novel biomarker to facilitate early diagnosis and predict prognosis in HCC patients.

Keywords: biomarker; diagnosis and prognosis; hepatocellular carcinoma; miR-500a-3p.

Grants and funding

This study was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (No. 2018A0303130165; No. 2017A030313792); the Science and Technology Program of Guangzhou (No. 201904010046); the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81874227).