A six-microRNA panel in plasma was identified as a potential biomarker for lung adenocarcinoma diagnosis

Abstract

// Xin Zhou 1, * , Wei Wen 2, * , Xia Shan 3, * , Wei Zhu 1 , Jing Xu 1 , Renhua Guo 1 , Wenfang Cheng 4 , Fang Wang 5 , Lian-Wen Qi 6 , Yan Chen 7 , Zebo Huang 1 , Tongshan Wang 1 , Danxia Zhu 8 , Ping Liu 1, 9 , Yongqian Shu 1, 9 1 Department of Oncology, First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing 210029, PR China 2 Department of Thoracic Surgery, First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing 210029, PR China 3 Department of Respiration, The Affiliated Jiangning Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing 210000, PR China 4 Department of Gastroenterology, First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing 210029, PR China 5 Department of Cardiology, First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University,Nanjing 210029, PR China 6 State Key Laboratory of Natural Medicines and Department of Pharmacognosy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 210009, China 7 Department of Emergency, First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing 210029, PR China 8 Department of Oncology, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, Changzhou 213003, China 9 Cancer Center of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing 210029, China * These authors contributed equally to this work Correspondence to: Wei Zhu, email: zhuwei@njmu.edu.cn Ping Liu, email: liupinga28@163.com Yongqian Shu, email: shuyongqian@njmu.edu.cn Keywords: plasma, miRNA, lung adenocarcinoma, diagnosis, exosomes Received: July 25, 2016      Accepted: December 13, 2016      Published: December 27, 2016 ABSTRACT Differently expressed microRNAs (miRNAs) in the plasma of lung adenocarcinoma (LA) patients might serve as biomarkers for LA detection. MiRNA expression profiling was performed using Exiqon panels followed by the verification (30 LA VS. 10 healthy controls (HCs)) with quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) in the screening phase. Identified miRNAs were confirmed through training (42 LA VS. 32 HCs) and testing stages (66 LA VS. 62 HCs) by using qRT-PCR based absolute quantification methods. A total of six up-regulated plasma miRNAs (miR-19b-3p, miR-21-5p, miR-221-3p, miR-409-3p, miR-425-5p and miR-584-5p) were identified. The six-miRNA panel could discriminate LA patients from HCs with areas under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.72, 0.74 and 0.84 for the training, testing and the external validation stage (33 LA VS. 30 HCs), respectively. All the miRNAs identified except miR-584-5p were significantly up-regulated in LA tissues. MiR-19-3p, miR-21-5p, miR-409-3p and miR-425-5p showed high expression in arterial plasma with borderline significance. Additionally, miR-19-3p, miR-21-5p and miR-221-3p were significantly up-regulated in exosomes extracted from LA peripheral plasma samples. In conclusion, we identified a six-miRNA panel in peripheral plasma which might give assistance to the detection of LA at least for Asian population to a certain extent.