Observational Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Oncol. Aug 15, 2021; 13(8): 970-979
Published online Aug 15, 2021. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.v13.i8.970
Diagnostic value of four serum exosome microRNAs panel for the detection of colorectal cancer
Lei Han, Wen-Jie Shi, Yi-Bin Xie, Zhi-Guo Zhang
Lei Han, Zhi-Guo Zhang, Department of Oncology, Beijing Daxing District People’s Hospital, Beijing 102600, China
Wen-Jie Shi, Department of Medicine Innovation Research, Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing 100853, China
Yi-Bin Xie, Department of Pancreatic and Gastric Surgery, National Cancer Center/National Clinical Research Center for Cancer/Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100121, China
Author contributions: Han L, Xie YB, and Zhang ZG and designed the study; Han L and Xie YB performed the research; Shi WJ analyzed the data; Han L wrote the paper; Xie YB and Shi WJ revised the manuscript for final submission; Han L and Shi WJ contributed equally to this study.
Supported by CAMS Initiative for Innovative Medicine, No. 2016-I2M-1-007; National Key Research and Development Program of China, No. 2020YFC2004604; National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 81972010.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the Beijing Daxing District People’s Hospital review board.
Informed consent statement: All study participants or their legal guardian provided written informed consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: No conflict of interest.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement-checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement-checklist of items.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (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/
Corresponding author: Zhi-Guo Zhang, MD, Doctor, Department of Oncology, Beijing Daxing District People’s Hospital, No. 26 Huangcun West Street, Beijing 102600, China. zhangzhiguo555888@163.com
Received: June 10, 2021
Peer-review started: June 10, 2021
First decision: June 15, 2021
Revised: June 18, 2021
Accepted: July 5, 2021
Article in press: July 5, 2021
Published online: August 15, 2021
Abstract
BACKGROUND

Early detection, early diagnosis, and early treatment are currently accepted methods that can effectively improve the efficacy of colorectal cancer (CRC) treatment. Exosomes were demonstrated to be potential tumor molecular markers.

AIM

To evaluate the diagnostic value of CRC by detecting four exosomal microRNAs (miRNAs) (miR-15b, miR-16, miR-21, and miR-31) that were demonstrated to have potential diagnostic value in serum.

METHODS

Relative expression levels of miR-15b, miR-16, miR-21, and miR-31 in 123 CRC, 117 colorectal adenoma, and 150 healthy controls were detected, and single and panel models were evaluated. The 2-ΔΔCt method was used to calculate the relative expression of miRNA compared to the internal control (U6). Eighty-one CRC patients, 67 colorectal adenoma patients, and 90 healthy controls were used for validation.

RESULTS

Compared to the healthy control group, the best indicator of the four miRNAs was miR-15b, and the sensitivity and specificity were 81.33% and 91.80%, respectively. For miR-15b, miR-21, and miR-31 individually, the sensitivity and specificity were 91.95% and 97.62%, 95.06% and 94.44%, respectively. Compared to the colorectal adenoma group, miR-15b, miR-16, and miR-21 in the CRC group showed significant differences (P < 0.05). The best single indicator was miR-16, with a sensitivity and specificity of 79.05% and 71.55%. The sensitivity and specificity of a panel that included miR-15b, miR-16, and miR-21 were 81.21% and 81.03%, and 85.19% and 82.09%, respectively, in the validation.

CONCLUSION

We built and validated a diagnostic model containing miR-15b, miR-21, and miR-31 expression levels to discriminate the healthy control group and CRC group, and its sensitivity and specificity were 95.06% and 94.44%, respectively. The miR-15b, miR-16, and miR-21 panel was used to discriminate the colorectal adenoma group and CRC group with a sensitivity and specificity of 85.19% and 82.09%, respectively.

Keywords: Colorectal cancer, Exosome, Serum, miRNAs, Biomarker

Core Tip: In this study, we aimed to evaluate the diagnostic value of colorectal cancer by detecting the exosome four microRNAs (miR-15b, miR-16, miR-21, miR-31). The diagnostic model may serve as a novel diagnostic model for colorectal cancer.