<p>Tumor-educated platelet miR-34c-3p and miR-18a-5p as potential liquid biopsy biomarkers for nasopharyngeal carcinoma diagnosis</p>

作者：Hui Wang, Xiuqi Wei, Bian Wu, Jingyu Su, Wenbin Tan, Kunyu Yang · 发表于：Cancer Management and Research · 年份：2019 · DOI：10.2147/cmar.s195654 · 被引用次数：44 · 研究领域：Cancer-related molecular mechanisms research、MicroRNA in disease regulation、Extracellular vesicles in disease

Background: Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is the common malignant tumor of nasopharynx in southern China and other southeastern Asian countries. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have been shown to play important roles in carcinogenesis. Recently, miR-34c-3p and miR-18a-5p have been found to be involved in carcinogenesis of NPC. Furthermore, platelets in NPC patients may acquire RNAs from NPC cells and turn into “tumor-educated platelet (TEP)”, which may serve as potential biomarkers for a diagnosis of NPC. However, the expression profiles of TEP miR-34c-3p and miR-18a-5p in NPC patients and their diagnostic values are yet to be determined. Aims: To investigate expression levels of TEP miR-34c-3p and miR-18a-5p and determine their diagnostic values for NPC. Materials and methods: Relative quantitative real-time PCR was used to determine the expression levels of TEP miR-34c-3p and miR-18a-5p in NPC patients (n=54) as compared to normal subjects (n=36). The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was performed to assess the diagnostic values of TEP miR-34c-3p and miR-18a-5p for NPC. Results: The expression levels of TEP miR-34c-3p and miR-18a-5p were significantly higher in NPC patients as compared to healthy subjects. The ROC analysis showed that the area under the ROC curve (AUC), sensitivity, specificity and accuracy for TEP miR-34c-3p, miR-18a-5p, or a combination of both miRNAs for NPC diagnostic tests were 0.952, 94.44%, 86.11%, 91.11%, or 0.884, 85.19%, 86.11%, 85.55%, ...