Circulating miR-25-3p and miR-451a May Be Potential Biomarkers for the Diagnosis of Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma

OBJECTIVE: There is no effective and reliable biomarker to distinguish benign thyroid nodules from papillary thyroid carcinomas (PTC). This study aimed at examining the levels of plasma miRNAs in patients with PTC or benign nodules to explore the potential miRNA biomarkers for PTC. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Genome-wide plasma miRNA expression profiles were determined by the miRNA Microarray and the significantly higher levels of miRNAs were validated in plasma and tissues by quantitative RT-PCR. The levels of two miRNAs were further tested in seven patients before and after tumor excision and the potential values for the diagnosis of PTC were evaluated by receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC). RESULTS: In comparison with that in the patients with benign nodules, eight significantly higher and three lower levels of plasma miRNAs were detected in the PTC patients. Further validation indicated that the levels of plasma miR-25-3p, miR-451a, miR-140-3p and let-7i were significantly higher in the PTC cases than in those with benign nodules or the healthy controls. Significantly higher levels of miR-25-3p and miR-451a were detected in the thyroid tissues from the PTC patients. The levels of plasma miR-25-3p and miR-451a in seven patients significantly decreased after tumor excision. ROC analyses revealed that the levels of plasma miR-25-3p at cut-off 1.41 and miR-451a at 1.38 had sensitivity of 92.8% and 88.9%, and specificity of 68.8% and 66.7% for distinguishing PTC from benign nodules, respectively. CONCLUSION: Our findings suggest that the levels of plasma miR-25-3p and miR-451a may be valuable for the diagnosis of PTC.