Circulating MiR-126 as a potential biomarker in Egyptian colorectal cancer patients: A case-control study.

Background: Globally, colorectal cancer (CRC) is among the most prevalent malignant tumors. It is characterized by unlimited proliferation, invasion, and metastasis. MicroRNA-126 (miR-126) has been shown in many studies to play a significant role in CRC, but data regarding its role in CRC Egyptian patients are limited.

Objectives: This case-control study aimed to investigate the miR-126 as a potential marker in CRC Egyptian patients and to correlate its expression levels with CRC tumor, node, metastasis (TNM) stage, distant metastasis, and tumor size.

Methods: The study included 50 adult Egyptian participants (30 patients with CRC, 10 patients with colorectal adenoma as a pathological control, and 10 healthy controls). MiR-126 expression levels were detected using Real-Time Quantitative PCR (qPCR) along with the endogenous reference gene hsa-miR-103a in all participants.

Results: MiR-126 expression was significantly decreased in CRC patients than both control groups. It was associated with advanced TNM stage (= 0.001) and distant metastasis (= 0.002). However, it was not correlated with tumor size (= 0.980), carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) (= 0.397), and cancer antigen 19-9 (CA19-9) (= 0.236). The best cut-off point of miR-126 to discriminate CRC from both controls was 0.7 and to discriminate metastatic CRC from non-metastatic CRC was 0.3.

Conclusions: Our results suggest that miR-126 could be used as an early marker for CRC detection among Egyptian patients and a good prognostic indicator associated with metastasis.