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.
Keywords: MicroRNA-3615; The Cancer Genome Atlas; gene expression; hepatocellular carcinoma; prognosis; survival.