Increased expression of microRNA-17 predicts poor prognosis in human glioma

Abstract

Aim. To investigate the clinical significance of microRNA-17 (miR-17) expression in human gliomas. Methods. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) analysis was used to characterize the expression patterns of miR-17 in 108 glioma and 20 normal brain tissues. The associations of miR-17 expression with clinicopathological factors and prognosis of glioma patients were also statistically analyzed. Results. Compared with normal brain tissues, miR-17 expression was significantly higher in glioma tissues (P<0.001). In addition, the increased expression of miR-17 in glioma was significantly associated with advanced pathological grade (P=0.006) and low Karnofsky performance score (KPS, P=0.01). Moreover, Kaplan-Meier survival and Cox regression analyses showed that miR-17 overexpression (P=0.008) and advanced pathological grade (P=0.02) were independent factors predicting poor prognosis for gliomas. Furthermore, subgroup analyses showed that miR-17 expression was significantly associated with poor overall survival in glioma patients with high pathological grades (for grade IIIIV: P<0.001). Conclusions. Our data offer the convinced evidence that the increased expression of miR-17 may have potential value for predicting poor prognosis in glioma patients with high pathological grades, indicating that miR-17 may contribute to glioma progression and be a candidate therapeutic target for this disease. © 2012 Shengkui Lu et al.