Hepatitis B Virus Affected Serum MicroRNA-203a Level in Hepatocellular Carcinoma

MicroRNAs have been shown to play a critical role in early diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma. Nevertheless, microRNAs' functions in serum of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) are not fully understood.

qRT-PCR was used to detect the expression level of microRNA-203a (miR-203a) in clinical serum samples of HCC and HepG2 cells. Kaplan-Meier method was used to estimate overall survival, and the cell scratch test was used to observe the migration ability of cells in vitro.

Here, we first observed that serum miR-203a was significantly upregulated in HCC patients with HBV compared to without HBV. In HCC patients, miR-203a low expression was positively related with poor overall survival. In addition, we found that HBV improved the poor prognosis of HCC patients with lower miR-203a levels. After successfully constructing HepG2 cell line carrying HBV, further studies demonstrated miR-203a expression level was increased in HepG2 with HBV compared to without HBV.

Lower serum miR-203a level in HCC patients led to worse overall survival, which depended on HBV. In vitro, miR-203a level was positively correlated with HBV. Therefore, our studies provided the novel insight into the role of serum miR-203a in HCC patients with HBV and potential new molecular target for early diagnosis of hepatitis B virus-related hepatocellular carcinoma.