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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Apr 21, 2015; 21(15): 4660-4665
Published online Apr 21, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i15.4660
Expression of circulating microRNA-20a and let-7a in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma
Fu-Cheng He, Wei-Wei Meng, Yun-Hui Qu, Ming-Xia Zhou, Jing He, Pin Lv, Liang Ming
Fu-Cheng He, Wei-Wei Meng, Yun-Hui Qu, Pin Lv, Liang Ming, Department of Medical Laboratory, The First Affiliated Hospital, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450052, Henan Province, China
Fu-Cheng He, Institute of Clinical Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450052, Henan Province, China
Ming-Xia Zhou, Jing He, The First Clinical Medical College, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450052, Henan Province, China
Author contributions: He FC designed the research; Meng WW, Qu YH, Lv P, He J and Zhou MX performed research; Ming L analyzed the data; and Meng WW wrote the paper.
Supported by Medical Scientific Research Foundation of Health Department of Henan Province of China, No. 201403077.
Ethics approval: The study was reviewed and approved by The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University Institutional Review Board.
Informed consent: All study participants, or their legal guardian, provided informed written consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest: The authors report no conflict of interest.
Data sharing: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Fu-Cheng He, PhD, Department of Medical Laboratory, The First Affiliated Hospital, Zhengzhou University, No. 100 Science Road, Zhengzhou 450052, Henan Province, China. hefucheng@126.com
Telephone: +86-371-67966307 Fax: +86-371-66913528
Received: November 1, 2014
Peer-review started: November 3, 2014
First decision: December 26, 2014
Revised: January 19, 2015
Accepted: February 11, 2015
Article in press: February 11, 2015
Published online: April 21, 2015
Abstract

AIM: To investigate the expressions of microRNA-20a (miR-20a) and let-7a in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) and their diagnostic value.

METHODS: Seventy patients with ESCC and 40 healthy subjects were enrolled to investigate the expression of miR-20a and let-7a using quantitative real-time PCR. The expression of miR-20a and let-7a was compared between ESCC patients and healthy subjects. The plasma levels of miR-20a and let-7a in relation to patient clinicopathologic parameters, the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, and the sensitivity and specificity of miR-20a and let-7a in ESCC diagnosis were analyzed.

RESULTS: Plasma levels of miR-20a were significantly higher in ESCC patients than in healthy controls, and plasma levels of let-7 were lower in ESCC patients than in healthy controls (both P < 0.05). The area under the ROC curve of miR-20a was 0.767 (95%CI: 0.677-0.857; P < 0.001), when the cut-off value was set at 4.77, the sensitivity and specificity were 64.3% and 75.0%, respectively. The area under the ROC curve of let-7a was 0.829 (95%CI: 0.754-0.904; P < 0.001), when the cut-off value was set at 6.22, the sensitivity and specificity were 74.3% and 85.0%, respectively. Thus, the sensitivity and specificity of let-7a were higher than those of miR-20a. The median relative plasma expression of let-7a in clinical stage III/IV (0.24) was lower than that in stage I/II (0.42), while the expression of miR-20a according to stage was not statistically different. The expressions of miR-20a and let-7a were not related to gender, age, tumor diameter, tumor grade, or pathologic stage.

CONCLUSION: Plasma miR-20a and let-7a levels are significantly altered in patients with ESCC and can be used as potential biomarkers in the diagnosis of ESCC.

Keywords: Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, MicroRNA-20a, Let-7a, Plasma

Core tip: The levels of microRNA-20a (miR-20a) and let-7a are reportedly changed in tumors. However, plasma levels of miR-20a and let-7a in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) have not yet been determined. In this study, we found that both miR-20a and let-7a levels changed in ESCC patients compared with healthy controls, and thus may serve as biomarkers in the diagnosis of ESCC.