Expression and clinical significance of miR-3615 in hepatocellular carcinoma

Abstract

Objective To investigate the association between microRNA-3615 (miR-3615) expression and the prognosis and clinicopathological features in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Methods We obtained clinicopathological and genomic data and prognostic information on HCC patients from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. We then analyzed differences in miR-3615 expression levels between HCC and adjacent tissues using SPSS software, and examined the relationships between miR-3615 expression levels and clinicopathological characteristics. We also explored the influence of miR-3615 expression levels on the prognosis of HCC patients using Kaplan–Meier survival curve analysis. Results Based on data for 345 HCC and 50 adjacent normal tissue samples, expression levels of miR-3615 were significantly higher in HCC tissues compared with adjacent tissues. MiR-3615 expression levels in HCC patients were negatively correlated with overall survival time and positively correlated with high TNM stage, serum Ki-67 expression level, and serum alpha-fetoprotein level. There were no significant correlations between miR-3615 expression and age, sex, and pathological grade. Conclusion MiR-3615 may be a promising new biomarker and prognostic factor for HCC.