Cancer Biomarkers - Volume 18, issue 3

Authors: Zhai, Ling-Ling | Zhou, Jiao | Zhang, Jing | Tang, Xi | Zhou, Ling-Yu | Yin, Jia-Yu | Vanessa, Minse-Evola Deniz | Peng, Wen | Lin, Jiang | Deng, Zhao-Qun

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: OBJECTIVES: This study was intended to investigate the expression status of Vimentin 2p (VIM 2p) , a pseudogene of Vimentin , and further analyze its clinical significance in AML patients. METHODS: Real-time quantitative PCR (RQ-PCR) was employed to explore the expression status of VIM 2p in 128 patients with de novo AML and 36 healthy controls. RESULTS: The expression level of VIM 2p was significantly decreased compared with healthy controls (P< 0.001). The patients with low VIM 2p expression were identified in 93 of 128 (73%) of AML patients. …No significant differences could be observed in sex, age, blood parameters, FAB/WHO subtypes, karyotype risks and ten gene mutations (FLT3-ITD, NPM1, C-KIT, IDH1/IDH2, DNMT3 A, C/EBPA, N/K-RAS and U2AF1 ) between VIM 2p low-expressed and high-expressed patients (P> 0.05). Patients with low VIM 2p expression had significantly shorter overall survival (OS) than those with high VIM 2p expression in whole AML cases (median 7 vs. 13 months, respectively, P= 0.032), besides cytogenetically normal AML (CN-AML) and non-M3 AML cohort (P= 0.042 and 0.045, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: These findings indicate that VIM 2p down-regulation is a common event in AML and may be associated with poor clinical outcome. Show more

Keywords: Pseudogene, Vimentin 2p, prognostic marker, acute myeloid leukemia

DOI: 10.3233/CBM-160247

Citation: Cancer Biomarkers, vol. 18, no. 3, pp. 305-312, 2017

Authors: Carvalho, Ivna N.S.R. | Reis, Adriana H.O. | dos Santos, Anna C.E. | Vargas, Fernando R.

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: BACKGROUND: Retinoblastoma (RB) is a malignant pediatric tumor and, mainly because of late diagnosis, most patients undergo enucleation. The tumor almost always initiates by two inactivation events at the RB1 gene. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in p53 pathway have been found to represent genetic modifiers of RB. OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether a SNP (rs4938723T > C) in mir-34b/c gene, a key effector of p53, could influence RB risk and patients' age of onset. METHODS: mir-34b/c rs4938723T > C was sequenced in 130 RB patients and in 105 control individuals. Statistical analysis consisted …of χ 2 tests or Fisher's exact, odds ratios (ORs) and Mann-Whitney test. RESULTS: The presence of the C allele did not change the risk for retinoblastoma. However, in hereditary RB patients, the mean age at diagnosis is much lower (1.4 ± 1.4 months) among CC carriers than when it is compared to TT genotype (13.8 ± 6.4, p = 0.001). Besides, hereditary RB patients with CC genotype are around 4 times more likely to present retinoblastoma under the age of 3 months (OR = 4.44; IC: 2.50-7.90; p = 0.002). CONCLUSIONS: The C allele together with a germ-line RB1 gene mutation may speed retinoblastoma onset which suggests that mir-34b/c rs4938723T > C may represent a candidate biomarker for hereditary RB. Show more

Keywords: Retinoblastoma, mir-34b/c, rs4938723, age at diagnosis

DOI: 10.3233/CBM-160248

Citation: Cancer Biomarkers, vol. 18, no. 3, pp. 313-317, 2017

Authors: Yu, Yalan | Zuo, Jiangcheng | Tan, Qian | Zar Thin, Khaing | Li, Ping | Zhu, Man | Yu, Mingxia | Fu, Zhenming | Liang, Chunzi | Tu, Jiancheng

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small, non-coding RNAs that play important roles in the carcinogenesis and progression of cancers. Aberrant expression of miRNAs in tissue and plasma has been found in various solid tumors. Our research aims to determine whether the abnormal plasma miRNA expression patterns can be used as a predictive marker for the diagnosis and prognosis of small cell lung cancer (SCLC). Fifty SCLC patients and 30 healthy controls annotated with clinical characteristics and specific questionnaire survey for smoking history were available. Quantification of several miRNAs (miR-20a-5p , miR-92a-2-5p and miR-17-5p ) was performed using quantitative real-time polymerase chain …reaction (qRT-PCR), and results were analyzed using SPSS statistics 17.0. Plasma miR-92a-2 level was significantly higher in the SCLC patients group compared with healthy control (P< 0.0001), the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis showed that the specificity and sensitivity were at 100% and 56% for diagnosis of SCLC, area under the ROC curve (AUC) was 0.761. No other statistically significant differences were found in the expression level of plasma miR-92a-2 among survival analysis in SCLC. Detection of miR-92a-2 levels in plasma could be a potential and noninvasive method for the diagnosis of SCLC. Show more

Keywords: MiR-92a-2, plasma, small cell lung cancer, diagnosis

DOI: 10.3233/CBM-160254

Citation: Cancer Biomarkers, vol. 18, no. 3, pp. 319-327, 2017