Circulating and tissue miR-100 acts as a potential diagnostic biomarker for cervical cancer

MicroRNAs (miRNA) are promising biomarkers for cancer diagnosis and prognosis; miR-100 expression is decreased in cervical cancer tissues.

To determine whether miR-100 is a useful biomarker for early cervical cancer diagnosis.

Total RNA was extracted from the sera of 34 healthy controls (HC), 64 cervical intraepithelial neoplasia patients (CIN), and 46 cervical cancer patients (CC). miR-100 expression levels were measured with quantitative real-time PCR. Correlations between clinicopathological factors and miR-100 expression levels were also assessed. The cut-off value for miR-100 was calculated from the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve.

Relative expression levels of miR-100 in serum were 1.84 ± 1.72, 3.93 ± 2.52, and 5.32 ± 3.39 in CC, CIN, and HC, respectively; it was significantly lower in CC (p< 0.001). The area under the ROC curve was 0.879 and the cut-off value was 2.451. miR-100 expression levels were significantly higher in metastasis cases that were lymph node negative than positive (p< 0.05). CC patients with miR-100 expression levels below the cut-off value tended to have a poor prognosis.

Serum miR-100 may be a useful diagnostic biomarker for CC, and for predicting lymph node metastasis and disease free survival in CC patients.