Observational Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Oncol. Aug 15, 2021; 13(8): 970-979
Published online Aug 15, 2021. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.v13.i8.970
Diagnostic value of four serum exosome microRNAs panel for the detection of colorectal cancer
Lei Han, Wen-Jie Shi, Yi-Bin Xie, Zhi-Guo Zhang
Lei Han, Zhi-Guo Zhang, Department of Oncology, Beijing Daxing District People’s Hospital, Beijing 102600, China
Wen-Jie Shi, Department of Medicine Innovation Research, Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing 100853, China
Yi-Bin Xie, Department of Pancreatic and Gastric Surgery, National Cancer Center/National Clinical Research Center for Cancer/Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100121, China
Author contributions: Han L, Xie YB, and Zhang ZG and designed the study; Han L and Xie YB performed the research; Shi WJ analyzed the data; Han L wrote the paper; Xie YB and Shi WJ revised the manuscript for final submission; Han L and Shi WJ contributed equally to this study.
Supported by CAMS Initiative for Innovative Medicine, No. 2016-I2M-1-007; National Key Research and Development Program of China, No. 2020YFC2004604; National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 81972010.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the Beijing Daxing District People’s Hospital review board.
Informed consent statement: All study participants or their legal guardian provided written informed consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: No conflict of interest.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement-checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement-checklist of items.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Zhi-Guo Zhang, MD, Doctor, Department of Oncology, Beijing Daxing District People’s Hospital, No. 26 Huangcun West Street, Beijing 102600, China. zhangzhiguo555888@163.com
Received: June 10, 2021
Peer-review started: June 10, 2021
First decision: June 15, 2021
Revised: June 18, 2021
Accepted: July 5, 2021
Article in press: July 5, 2021
Published online: August 15, 2021
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background

Exosomes, as tumor molecular markers, have the advantages of protecting the nucleic acids in them and having potential diagnostic value for kinds of diseases. Diagnostic indicator panel may improve the diagnostic value when compared to the single indicator.

Research motivation

The present study evaluated the diagnostic value of colorectal cancer (CRC) by detecting the exosome four microRNAs (miRNAs) (miR-15b, miR-16, miR-21, miR-31), which were demonstrated to have potential diagnostic value in serum.

Research objectives

This study aimed to evaluate the potential biomarker-exome miRNA in serum for the diagnosis of CRC.

Research methods

Relative expression of miR-15b, miR-16, miR-21, and miR-31 in CRC, colorectal adenoma, and healthy controls were detected; the single and panel model were evaluated for the diagnostic model building. 2-ΔΔCt method was used to calculate the relative expression of miRNA expression compared to the intern control (U6). Independent CRC, 67 colorectal adenoma, and 90 healthy controls were enrolled for the building validation.

Research results

A diagnostic model including miR-15b, miR-21, and miR-31 panel for discriminating healthy control group and CRC group was built; the sensitivity and specificity were 95.06% and 94.44%. The sensitivity and specificity of miR-15b, miR-16, and miR-21 panel for discriminating colorectal adenoma group and CRC group were 85.19% and 82.09%, respectively.

Research conclusions

The diagnostic value of the exosome four miRNAs (miR-15b, miR-16, miR-21, miR-31) were evaluated and were demonstrated to have potential diagnostic value in serum for CRC.

Research perspectives

Although we confirmed the diagnostic value of serum exosome miRNAs for CRC, there remains research to be performed, mostly multi-center studies with a larger sample size.