Published online Jun 6, 2022. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v10.i16.5165
Peer-review started: October 22, 2021
First decision: December 27, 2021
Revised: December 29, 2021
Accepted: March 15, 2022
Article in press: March 15, 2022
Published online: June 6, 2022
Processing time: 223 Days and 8 Hours
Identifying non-invasive tumor biomarkers for the early screening of colorectal cancer (CRC) and advanced adenomas (AAs), appears to be a key measure to reduce cancer incidence and extend the long-term survival of patients through timely recognition and radical surgery of early-onset CRC and precancerous lesions.
Due to the lack of high specificity and sensitivity screening strategies, a number of patients with CRC are diagnosed in advanced stages, which is a bottleneck in decreasing the mortality rate of cancer patients. With the development of genome-sequencing technology, circulating microRNAs (miRNAs) are considered potential non-invasive screening biomarkers of colorectal neoplasms.
To examine the efficiency of circulating miR-627-5p and miR-199a-5p in serum samples to delineate patients with CRC and AA from healthy controls (HCs).
Candidate miRNAs were first selected from three public miRNA datasets using bioinformatic analysis methods. An independent set of serum samples from 60 patients with CRC, 60 patients with AA, and 30 HCs was included to detect the diagnostic power of candidate miRNAs. The origin and function of candidate miRNAs were then explored in cancer cell lines and tumor tissues.
We first identified that circulating miR-627-5p and miR-199a-5p were markedly elevated in patients with colorectal neoplasia and both miRNAs could discriminate CRCs and AAs from the control group with high sensitivity and specificity. The combination of miR-199a-5p and miR-627-5p was a more reliable diagnostic model than conventional tumor markers and each miRNA alone. Additionally, the expression levels of both miRNAs were markedly reduced in postoperative serum samples compared to those in preoperative samples and their expression levels increased with culture time and cell numbers in the culture media of cancer cell lines, which suggested both miRNAs might be tumor-derived.
Serum miR-672-5p and miR-199a-5p have strong potential as practical and economic non-invasive biomarkers for early screening of colorectal neoplasms.
Circulating miRNAs in peripheral blood offer new opportunities for promising early detection of colorectal neoplasms.