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Updated: Oct 2, 2025

Author Spotlight: Investigating Immune Cell Dynamics in the Tumor Microenvironment — Challenges and Innovations in Cancer Prognosis
Published on: April 12, 2024
miR-500a-3p is a Potential Prognostic Biomarker in Hepatocellular Carcinoma
Jianting Long1, Baoxian Liu2, Zhijia Yao1
1Department of Medicinal Oncology, The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, 510080, People's Republic of China.
Purpose:
miR-500a-3p has been extensively reported to be implicated in the development and progression in several human cancer types. This study aimed to investigate the diagnostic and prognostic significance of miR-500a-3p as a biomarker in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).
Methods:
miR-500a-3p expression was evaluated by in situ hybridization (ISH) and real-time PCR in 10 adjacent normal tissues (ANT), 21 liver fibrosis tissues, and 110 HCC tissues. Statistical analysis was used to investigate the correlation of miR-500a-3p expression with clinicopathological features in HCC patients. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis was performed to evaluate the prognostic significance of miR-500a-3p in overall survival and recurrence-free survival in HCC patients.
Results:
In this study, we found that expression levels of miR-500a-3p were enhanced in HCC tissues. High miR-500a-3p levels were positively correlated with multiple clinicopathological features, including advanced clinical stage, distant metastatic status, increased AFP levels and poor tumor differentiation degree. More importantly, high miR-500a-3p levels predicted poor overall survival and early recurrence in HCC patients. Finally, a strong and positive correlation of miR-500a-3p mRNA expression with ISH staining scores was observed in clinical HCC tissues.
Conclusion:
Our findings suggest that miR-500a-3p might be used as a novel biomarker to facilitate early diagnosis and predict prognosis in HCC patients.

