Human epididymis protein 4 expression positively correlated with miR-21 and served as a prognostic indicator in ovarian cancer

摘要

Ovarian cancer is the most common cause of gynecological malignancy-related mortality. Human epididymis protein 4 (HE4) is a useful biomarker for ovarian cancer when either used alone or in combination with carbohydrate antigen 125 (CA125). What is more, aberrant expression of microRNA-21 (miR-21) has been shown to be involved in oncogenesis, but the relationship between miR-21 and HE4 in ovarian cancer is not clear. Tumor and adjacent tumor tissues from 43 patients with ovarian cancer were examined. Real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was used to detect the expression of HE4 in the carcinoma and adjacent tissues. The associations between HE4 and tumor biological characters were discussed. TaqMan(A (R)) MicroRNA (miRNA) assays were employed to detect the expression of miR-21 in the ovarian carcinoma. In ovarian cancer, the expression of HE4 messenger RNA (mRNA) in cancer tissues was higher than adjacent tumor tissues (P < 0.0001), which was 1.299-fold of adjacent tumor tissues. And, the expression of miR-21 was also up-regulated which was significantly different in the ovarian cancer (the positive rate was 76.74 %). There was a significantly positive correlation between miR-21 and HE4 expression (r = 0.283 and P = 0.066 for HE4 mRNA, r = 0.663 and P < 0.0001 for serum HE4). There was also a significant correlation between miR-21 and tumor grade (r = 0.608, P < 0.0001). Significantly, patients with recent recurrence (less than 6 months, n = 17) have a higher miR-21 expression than those with no recent recurrence. Therefore, HE4 and miR-21 may play an important role in the development and progression of ovarian cancer and they may serve as prognostic indicators in ovarian cancer.