MicroRNA-221-3p is up-regulated and serves as a potential biomarker in pancreatic cancer

Figures & data

Figure 1. Flow diagram of the current study.

Figure 2. Expression of miR-221-3p in PCa cell lines and normal pancreases ductal epithelial cells. Compared with H6C7 and HPDE, SW1990 showed highest expression of miR-221-3p (A). PCa cell lines had higher miR-221-3p expression (B).

Figure 3. Compared with negative control (NC), mimics of miR-221-3p increased cell proliferation rate in SW1990 cell line, while inhibitor of miR-221-3p reduced cell proliferation (A). For cell apoptosis analysis, miR-221-3p inhibitor increased the percentage of apoptotic cells, while miR-221-3p mimics decreased the percentage of apoptotic cells (B). *p < .05, **p < .01.

Figure 4. Expression miR-221-3p was analysed in 21 pairs of PCa tissues and adjacent non-tumour tissues (A), and miR-221-3p expression is significantly higher in PCa tissues (B). ROC curve suggested that the AUC of miR-221-3p (0.687) is larger than that of CA19-9 (0.589).

Table 1. Association between plasma miR-221-3p expression level and clinical characteristics of PCa patients.

		miR-221-3p Expression
Characteristics	Patients	Low	High	p Value
Age				p = 1
<65	29	9	20
>65	58	18	40
Gender				p = .717
Male	50	15	37
Female	37	12	25
Location				p = .942
Pancreas head	64	20	44
Pancreas body/pancreas tail	23	7	16
Tumour stage				p = .069
T0/T1/T2	16	8	8
T3/T4	71	19	52
Lymph node metastasis				p = .06
Positive	54	11	43
Negative	33	16	17
Distant metastasis				p = .012
Positive	17	1	16
Negative	70	26	44
TNM stage				p = .015
I–IIA	32	15	17
IIB–IV	55	12	43

p < .05 was showed the significant associations.