Increased expression of miR-552 acts as a potential predictor biomarker for poor prognosis of colorectal cancer

OBJECTIVE: MiR-552 has recently been identified to be involved in tumorigenesis of colorectal cancer (CRC). The aim of this study was to determine if miR-552 could serve as a prognosis indicator for patients with CRC. PATIENTS AND METHODS: MiR-552 expression levels were detected in 183 pairs of primary CRC and their matched non-tumor tissues by qPCR. The association between miR-552 expression and clinicopathological parameters was analyzed. The survival curves were calculated by the Kaplan-Meier method. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to explore the prognostic significance of miR-552 expression. RESULTS: We found that miR-552 expression was upregulated in CRC tumor tissues compared to their adjacent normal tissues (p < 0.01). Increased miR-552 expression was significantly associated with histological grade (p = 0.000), lymph nodes metastasis (p = 0.022) and TNM stage (p = 0.002). In addition, the patients with high miR-552 expression had a significantly worse 5-year overall survival rate than those with low miR-552 expression (p = 0.0036). Furthermore, according to univariate and multivariate analysis, elevated miR-552 was confirmed to be an independent prognostic factor for worse survival. CONCLUSIONS: T he current results demonstrated that high miR-552 expression was associated with poor outcomes in patients with CRC. MiR-552 may be a potential prognostic biomarker and therapeutic target in CRC patients.