Up-regulation of miR-182 expression in colorectal cancer tissues and its prognostic value.

PURPOSE: Accumulating evidences indicate that dysregulated microRNAs (miRNA) are involved in cancer tumorigenesis and progression. In the present study, we evaluated the expression of miR-182 in colorectal cancer and adjacent noncancerous tissues and explored its associations with clinicopathological characteristics and prognosis.

METHODS: Quantitative real-time PCR was used to analyze the expression of miR-182 in 148 pairs of colorectal cancer and adjacent noncancerous tissues. The relationship between miR-182 expression and clinicopathological characteristics in colorectal cancer tissues was estimated using Mann-Whitney U test or Kruskal-Wallis test, as appropriate. We calculated the survival curves and prognostic values of each variable by the Kaplan-Meier method and Cox proportional hazards regression analysis, respectively.

RESULTS: The expression of miR-182 was found up-regulated in colorectal cancer tissues compared with adjacent noncancerous tissues (p < 0.001), and its up-regulation was significantly correlated with large tumor size (p = 0.016), positive regional lymph node metastasis (p = 0.008), and advanced tumor-node-metastasis stage (p = 0.020). Furthermore, Kaplan-Meier analysis demonstrated that high miR-182 expression predicted poor survival (p = 0.001), and Cox proportional hazards risk analysis indicated that miR-182 was an independent prognostic factor for colorectal cancer.

CONCLUSIONS: MiR-182 was up-regulated in colorectal cancer tissues and correlated with adverse clinical characteristics and poor prognosis, indicating that miR-182 might be involved in colorectal cancer progression and could be used as a potential prognostic biomarker and therapeutic target in the management of colorectal cancer.