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

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 III~IV: 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.