Altered profile of serum microRNAs in pancreatic cancer‐associated new‐onset diabetes mellitus. (15th September 2015) - Dai, Xin
Abstract: Background: New‐onset diabetes mellitus in pancreatic cancer has been recognized as a paraneoplastic phenomenon caused by the existence of the tumor. Circulating microRNAs (miRNAs) are emerging as non‐invasive biomarkers for the detection of various cancers. In the present study, we hypothesized that a specific serum miRNA profile exists in pancreatic cancer‐associated new‐onset diabetes mellitus (PaC‐DM). Methods: Initial screening of differentially expressed miRNAs in pooled serum samples from 25 PaC‐DM patients, 25 non‐cancer new‐onset type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients, and 25 healthy controls was performed by TaqMan low‐density arrays (TLDA). A stem–loop quantitative reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction (qRT‐PCR) was conducted to confirm the relative concentrations of candidate miRNAs in 80 PaC‐DM, 85 non‐cancer new‐onset T2DM patients, and 80 healthy controls. Results: The TLDA identified 16 serum miRNAs that were significantly increased in PaC‐DM samples. A combination of six serum miRNAs ( miR‐483‐5p, miR‐19a, miR‐29a, miR‐20a, miR‐24, miR‐25 ) was selected by qRT‐PCR as a biomarker for PaC‐DM. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) for the six‐miRNA panel training and validation sets was 0.959 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.890–1.028) and 0.902 (95% CI 0.844–0.955), respectively. The combination of these six miRNAs enabled the discrimination of PaC‐DM from non‐cancer new‐onset T2DM with an AUC of 0.885 (95% CI 0.784–0.986) and 0.887 (95% CI 0.823–0.952) for the training and validation sets, respectively. Conclusion: The six‐serum miRNA panel may have potential as a biomarker for the accurate diagnosis and discrimination of PaC‐DM from healthy controls and non‐cancer new‐onset T2DM.