Abstract
We identified that microRNA expression changed dynamically during liver development and found that miR-500 is an oncofetal miRNA in liver cancer. miR-500 was abundantly expressed in several human liver cancer cell lines and 45% of human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tissue. Most importantly, an increased amount of miR-500 was found in the sera of the HCC patients. In fact, miR-500 levels in sera of the HCC patients returned to normal after the surgical treatment in three HCC patients. Our findings reveal that diverse changes of miRNAs occur during liver development and, one of these, miR-500 is an oncofetal miRNA relevant to the diagnosis of human HCC.
Acknowledgements
We thank Dr Lim Chun Ren and Dr Kenichi Matsubara at DNA Chip Research Inc. for supporting the processing of microarray data. We thank Ms Ayako Inoue and Ms Nachi Namatame for their excellent technical assistance. This work was supported in part by a Grant-in-Aid for the Third-Term Comprehensive 10-Year Strategy for Cancer Control; Health Science Research Grants for Research on the Hepatitis C Virus from the Ministry of Health, Labour, Welfare of Japan; the Program for Promotion of Fundamental Studies in Health Sciences of the National Institute of Biomedical Innovation (NiBio); a Grant for Research Fellowships of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science for Young Scientists.
Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this article.