Identification of miR-146b-5p in tissues as a novel biomarker for prognosis of gallbladder carcinoma.

OBJECTIVE: Increasing evidence has suggested that dysregulation of microRNAs (miRNAs) could contribute to tumor progression. The aim of present study was to evaluate the feasibility of using miR-146b-5p as a prognostic biomarker in gallbladder cancer (GBC).

PATIENTS AND METHODS: We collected 150 pairs of tissue specimens from patients with GBC and adjacent normal specimens. The expression level of miR-146b-5p was measured in 150 GBC tissues and adjacent normal tissues RT-qPCR. Kaplan-Meier method was used to analyze the overall survival. The univariate and multivariable Cox regression analyses were performed to identify whether miR-146b-5p could serve as an independent prognostic factor for GBC patients.

RESULTS: miR-146b-5p expression was decreased in GBC tissues compared with that in adjacent normal tissues (p < 0.01). In addition, miR-146b-5p expression was correlated with TNM stage (p = 0.009), liver metastasis (p = 0.001) and differentiated degree (p = 0.022). Kaplan-Meier survival curves showed that GBC patients with high miR-146b-5p expression showed better overall survival than those with low miR-146b-5p expression (p = 0.0005). At last, univariate and multivariate analyses confirmed that increased miR-146b-5p expression was an independent predictive factor of good prognosis for GBC patients.

CONCLUSIONS: Our study showed that miR-146b-5p was a potential prognostic biomarker and higher expression of miR-146b-5p is associated with a poor prognosis in GBC.