Investigation of selected MiRNA as potential biomarker in chronic myeloid leukemia patients

Abstract

Background and aim

Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is a type of blood cancer caused by a genetic abnormality. Meanwhile, circulating microRNAs (miRNAs) are emerging as potential noninvasive cancer biomarkers.

This research aims to establish whether miR-192-5p and miR-766-5p provide an accurate assessment of CML diagnosis, and whether these miRNAs have predictive ability on an individual (i.e., independent) and combined basis.

Methods

One hundred (n=100) study participants (i.e., 50 patients with diagnosed CML and 50 healthy controls) were recruited and consented to study participation. Plasma samples were obtained from all subjects, and miRNA levels were measured using qRT-PCR and analyzed. Group differences were examined, and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves and multivariate logistic regression were used for statistical analysis.

Results

The plasma of CML participants showed downregulation (p < 0.0001) of both miR-192-5p and miR-766-5p in comparison to control participants. miR- 192-5p had good diagnostic performance (i.e., AUC = 0.7958, sensitivity 74%, specificity 72%). However, miR-766-5p had moderate diagnostic performance (i.e., AUC = 0.7164, sensitivity 74%, specificity 64%). In the multivariate logistic regression analysis, miR-192-5p remained a statistically significant, independent CML predictor (OR = 0.48, 95% CI: 0.31-0.69, p < 0.001); whereas, miR-766- 5p did not. Smoking status and age (OR = 0.23, p < 0.01) were associated with CML. The combined multivariable model (i.e., plasma miRNA and demographic/ clinical variables) yielded enhanced diagnostic performance (AUC = 0.864; sensitivity 86%, specificity 76%, accuracy 81%); thus, the combined model had better discriminative ability than either miRNA alone.

Conclusion

Downregulation appeared clearly in both miR-192-5p and miR-766- 5p among CML patients. Still, after adjusting for multiple variables, only miR- 192-5p kept its predictive strength on its own. Nevertheless, when used together, accuracy increased - shown by an AUC reaching 0.864 - which suggests that combining markers may work better than using one alone.