Circulating microRNA 483-5p in multiple myeloma as a novel biomarker for diagnosis and predicting survival

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of small non-coding single stranded RNAs whose dysregulation of expression plays an important role in cancer development. Circulating miRNAs are novel biomarkers in several cancers including acute myeloblastic leukemia and diffuse large B cell lymphoma. Thus, we explored whether the miRNAs in plasma could be a useful clinical biomarker for multiple myeloma (MM) patients.

MiRNA microarray was conducted to determine deregulated miRNAs in plasma of MM patients. TaqMan real-time PCR was used to validate the results. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was performed to reveal the diagnostic accuracy of the significantly deregulated miRNAs as potential biomarkers. The Kaplan-Meier and log-rank tests were used to assess the correlation of miRNAs with progression-free survival (PFS).

The expression levels of five miRNAs in plasma were up-regulated while eight miRNAs were down-regulated in MM patients compared to normal controls according to microarray. Validation of the five miRNAs detected as promising biomarkers was carried out. MiR-483-5p was found to have potential as diagnostic biomarkers in myeloma. ROC analysis revealed that miR-483-5p had considerable diagnostic accuracy, yielding an ROC-AUC (the areas under the ROC curve) of 0.722 (sensitivity 61%, specificity 75%). The expression levels of miR-483-5p are associated with Durie-Salmon (DS) staging system and ISS staging system (p < 0.01). After a median follow up of 10 months (range: 2-60 months) from diagnosis, the median PFS of patients highly expressing miR-483-5p and of low expression patients was 11 and 21 months, respectively (p=0.04).

These data demonstrate that miR-483-5p highly expresses in the plasma of MM patients. MiR-483-5p may serve as a diagnostic and prognostic biomarker in MM.

No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.