Identification of miR-146b-5p in tissues as a novel biomarker for prognosis of gallbladder carcinoma.

OBJECTIVE

Increasing evidence has suggested that dysregulation of microRNAs (miRNAs) could contribute to tumor progression. The aim of present study was to evaluate the feasibility of using miR-146b-5p as a prognostic biomarker in gallbladder cancer (GBC).

PATIENTS AND

METHODS

We collected 150 pairs of tissue specimens from patients with GBC and adjacent normal specimens. The expression level of miR-146b-5p was measured in 150 GBC tissues and adjacent normal tissues RT-qPCR. Kaplan-Meier method was used to analyze the overall survival. The univariate and multivariable Cox regression analyses were performed to identify whether miR-146b-5p could serve as an independent prognostic factor for GBC patients.

RESULTS

miR-146b-5p expression was decreased in GBC tissues compared with that in adjacent normal tissues (p < 0.01). In addition, miR-146b-5p expression was correlated with TNM stage (p = 0.009), liver metastasis (p = 0.001) and differentiated degree (p = 0.022). Kaplan-Meier survival curves showed that GBC patients with high miR-146b-5p expression showed better overall survival than those with low miR-146b-5p expression (p = 0.0005). At last, univariate and multivariate analyses confirmed that increased miR-146b-5p expression was an independent predictive factor of good prognosis for GBC patients.

CONCLUSIONS

Our study showed that miR-146b-5p was a potential prognostic biomarker and higher expression of miR-146b-5p is associated with a poor prognosis in GBC.