Identification of circulating miR-663a as a potential biomarker for diagnosing osteosarcoma

Osteosarcoma (OS) is the most common malignant bone tumor in children and young adults. The overall survival rate of OS patients has not been improved during the last 25 years, in part due to the lack of sensitive and specific biomarkers. This study aimed to investigate miRNAs existing in the peripheral blood as diagnostic biomarkers of OS.

OS patients and healthy controls (HCs) in this study were enrolled from Nanjing First Hospital. Candidate miRNA was selected by comprehensive analysis of GEO database. The expressions of candidate miRNA in tissues and plasma samples were subsequently examined through qRT-PCR. The diagnostic utility of candidate miRNA was examined by using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis.

After analysis of GEO database and clinical plasma samples, miR-663a was selected as a candidate miRNA to further investigate its value for diagnosing OS due to the highest differential fold change. We discovered that miR-663a expressions were remarkably elevated in both tissues and plasmas of OS patients. In addition, upregulated miR-663a in peripheral blood of OS patients was proved to be tumor-derived. The area under the ROC curve (AUC) was 0.86 (95%CI: 0.78 to 0.93) for miR-663a with 67.35% sensitivity and 89.8% specificity.

Plasma miR-663a was identified as a novel potential biomarker for the diagnosis of OS.