Downregulation of microRNA-124 predicts poor prognosis in glioma patients

The aim of the present study was to investigate the clinical significance of microRNA-124 (miR-124) expression in glioma. The expression levels of miR-124 were measured using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) analysis. The correlation between the miR-124 levels and the clinicopathological factors of the glioma patients was analyzed. The survival curves were calculated by the Kaplan-Meier method. The influence of each variable on survival was examined by the Cox multivariate regression analysis. Compared with nonneoplastic brain tissues, the expression level of miR-124 was significantly decreased in glioma tissues (1.27 +/- A 0.55 versus 6.91 +/- A 1.06, P < 0.0001). The expression level of miR-124 was positively correlated with grade (P = 0.003) and Karnofsky performance status (KPS) score (P = 0.008). A significant difference was found that glioma patients with low miR-124 expression level had distinctly shorter OS (P = 0.001) and PFS (P = 0.002) than patients with high miR-124 expression level. Furthermore, we found that low miR-124 expression (OS P = 0.009; PFS P = 0.002) and advanced histologic grade (OS P = 0.005; PFS P = 0.001) were independent prognostic parameters indicating poor prognosis for glioma patients. Our results showed that the decreased expression of miR-124 may be associated with malignant tumor progression and poor prognosis in patients with gliomas, suggesting that miR-124 may be a novel and valuable signature for predicting the clinical outcome of patients with gliomas.