Published online Oct 15, 2020. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.v12.i10.1195
Peer-review started: June 2, 2020
First decision: July 21, 2020
Revised: August 4, 2020
Accepted: August 31, 2020
Article in press: August 31, 2020
Published online: October 15, 2020
Processing time: 134 Days and 0.5 Hours
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths worldwide, but there is a shortage of effective biomarkers for its diagnosis.
To explore blood exosomal micro ribonucleic acids (miRNAs) as potential biomarkers for HCC diagnosis.
The principal component analysis suggested that daily alcohol consumption could alter the blood exosomal miRNA profiles of hepatitis B virus positive non-HCC patients through miR-3168 and miR-223-3p. The miRNA profiles also revealed the tumor stages of HCC patients. High expression of miR-455-5p and miR-30c-5p, which significantly correlated with better overall survival in tumor tissues, could also be detected in blood exosomes. Two pairs of miRNAs (miR-584-5p/miR-106-3p and miR-628-3p/miR-941) showed a 94.1% sensitivity and 68.4% specificity to differentiate HCC patients from non-HCC patients. The specificity of the combination was substantially influenced by alcohol consumption habits.
This study suggested that blood exosomal miRNAs can be used as new non-invasive diagnostic tools for HCC. However, their accuracy could be affected by tumor stage and alcohol consumption habits.
Core Tip: To identify the potential biomarkers for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) diagnosis, we focused on exosomal micro ribonucleic acids (miRNAs) using miRNA sequencing. To our knowledge, this is the first study to explore the exosomal miRNAs for differential diagnosis of HCC using miRNA sequencing. This study provided a hint that blood exosomal miRNAs can be used as new non-invasive diagnostic tools for HCC in clinical implementation.