ABSTRACT
MicroRNA-145-5p downregulation has been shown to play important roles in the oncogenesis and progression of many cancer types including glioblastoma (GBM). However, the potential role of serum miR-145-5p in the diagnosis and prognosis of glioblastoma (GBM) remains poorly known. This study was designed to explore the clinical significance of serum miR-145-5p in patients with GBM. Quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) was carried out to measure the serum levels of miR-145-5p in 117 GBM patients, 52 grade I/II glioma patients and 50 healthy volunteers. The associations between serum miR-145-5p level and the clinical variables as well as prognosis were analyzed. The bioinformatic analysis of the downstream targets of miR-145-5p was also performed. Compared to grade I/II glioma patients and healthy controls, serum miR-145-5p levels were significantly decreased in GBM patients. In addition, the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis demonstrated that serum miR-145-5p might be a reliable diagnostic marker of GBM with an AUC of 0.895, combing with 84.6% sensitivity and 78.0% specificity. Low serum miR-145-5p level had significant correlation with aggressive clinicopathological parameters. Moreover, the Kaplan-Meier curve revealed that patients in the high serum miR-145-5p group survived significantly longer than those in the low serum miR-145-5p group. Multivariate analysis confirmed that serum miR-145-5p expression was an independent prognostic indicator for overall survival. The bioinformatic analysis revealed that many downstream genes and pathways that miR-145-5p regulated were closely associated with the initiation and development of cancer. Taken together, decreased serum miR-145-5p is a promising diagnostic and prognostic biomarker for GBM.
ABSTRACT
AIM: To investigate the significance of endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) in predicting severe acute pancreatitis (SAP). METHODS: We recruited 71 patients with acute pancreatitis (AP) and excluded 11 of them; finally, cases of mild acute pancreatitis (MAP) (n = 30) and SAP (n = 30), and healthy volunteers (n = 20) were internalized to investigate levels of EPCs, C-reactive protein (CRP), tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), fibrinogen (FIB) and white blood cells (WBC) in peripheral blood. RESULTS: The levels of TNF-α, WBC, FIB and CRP were higher both in SAP and MAP cases than in healthy volunteers (P < 0.05, all). Interestingly, the level of EPCs was higher in SAP than MAP (1.63% ± 1.47% vs 6.61% ± 4.28%, P < 0.01), but there was no significant difference between the MAP cases and healthy volunteers (1.63% ± 1.47% vs 0.55% ± 0.54%, P > 0.05). Receiver operating characteristics curve (ROC) showed that EPCs, TNF-α, CRP and FIB were significantly associated with SAP, especially EPCs and CRP were optimal predictive markers of SAP. When the cut-off point for EPCs and CRP were 2.26% and 5.94 mg/dL, the sensitivities were 90.0% and 73.3%, and the specificities were 83.3% and 96.7%. Although, CRP had the highest specificity, and EPCs had the highest sensitivity and highest area under the curve value (0.93). CONCLUSION: Data suggest that EPCs may be a new biological marker in predicting SAP.
