<p>A serum piRNA signature as promising non-invasive diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers for colorectal cancer</p>

Abstract

Purpose: Piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) are a novel class of small non-coding RNAs, which are not easily degraded but detectable in human body fluids. Recent studies have shown that aberrant piRNA expression is a signature feature across multiple tumor types. However, the expressions of piRNAs in serum of tumor patients and their potential clinical values remain largely unclear. Patients and methods: High-throughput sequencing was performed to investigate the serum piRNA profiles, followed by evaluations in serum samples of 220 colorectal cancer (CRC) patients and 220 healthy controls using reverse transcription quantitative real-time PCR (RT-qPCR). Biomarker panels including piRNA-based Panel I and carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA)-based Panel II, were developed by logistic regression model, and their diagnostic potentials were compared. Fagan’s nomogram was plotted to promote clinical application. Results: We identified five differentially expressed serum piRNAs (piR-001311, piR-004153, piR-017723, piR-017724 and piR-020365), which, when combined in the piRNA-based Panel I, outperformed the CEA-based Panel II ( P <0.001) and could detect CRC with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.867. In addition, Kaplan–Meier analysis showed that patients with low serum piR-017724 level had worse overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS). In multivariate Cox regression analysis, serum piR-017724 was an independent prognostic factor for OS and PFS ( P <0.05). Conclusion: Our findings suggest serum piRNA expression signatures have potential for use as biomarkers for CRC detection and to predict prognosis at the time of diagnosis.

Small RNA‐sequence analysis of plasma‐derived extracellular vesicle miRNAs in smokers and patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease as circulating biomarkers

“…Despite the lesser variation in the percentage of piRNA sense read counts among the three groups (non‐smokers, smokers and patients with COPD), we still found a few differentially expressed piRNAs from the RNA‐sequencing data. piR‐004153 has been reported as a serum piRNA signature for a non‐invasive diagnostic and prognostic biomarker in colorectal cancer that was significantly down‐regulated [59]. A piR disease database search revealed piR‐020450 is down‐regulated in breast, liver and ovarian cancers (http://piwirna2disease.org/) [60].…”

Analysis of Circular RNA-Related Competing Endogenous RNA Identifies the Immune-Related Risk Signature for Colorectal Cancer

“…Therefore, it is necessary to continuously develop better methods to more accurately predict the survival of CRC. Recently, some nomograms have been widely used for predicting the prognosis of CRC (Fernández Montes et al, 2019;Qu et al, 2019). For example, Fernández Montes et al (2019) developed a nomogram to predict 3-, 6-, and 12-month OS based on six variables, including the tumor site, ECOG PS, BRAF mutations, the number of metastatic sites, the response to first-line, and CEA.…”

PIWI-interacting RNAs piR-13643 and piR-21238 are promising diagnostic biomarkers of papillary thyroid carcinoma

“…From the resulting reaction, 2 μl was used for quantitative PCR analysis performed on an ABI PRISM 7900 Sequence Detection System (Applied Biosystems, USA) using the miScript SYBR AGING Green PCR Kit and Bulge-Loop primer (Ribobio, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China). A previously published method was used for piRNA detection [53,54]. For the quantitative PCR analysis, 10 μl of 2x QuantiTect SYBR Green PCR Master Mix, 2 μl of the RT product, 0.8 μl of 5 μM Bulge-Loop piRNA forward primer, and 0.8 μl of 5 μM Bulge-Loop piRNA reverse primer were added to each reaction.…”

“…The reaction was incubated at 95 °C for 10 min, followed by 40 cycles at 95 °C for 2 s, 60 °C for 20 s, and 70 °C for 10 s. All reactions were performed in triplicate. U6 was selected as a reference gene according to a previous study [53,54]. PiRNA expression was normalized to the mean of the reference gene.…”