Serum microRNA-128 as a biomarker for diagnosis of glioma

MicroRNA-128 is down-regulated in glioma tissues, which regulates cell proliferation, self-renewal, apoptosis, angiogenesis and differentiation. This study aims at investigating the diagnostic value of serum miR-128 in human glioma. Real-time quantitative reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction was used to detect the expression levels of miR-128 in serum samples from 151 glioma patients, 59 postoperative patients, 52 meningioma patients and 53 normal donors. To analyze the association of miR-128 expression with clinicopathological parameters in serum samples and matched tissues, matched 151 glioma tissues were collected in the study. Receiver operating characteristic analysis (ROC) was utilized to evaluate the value of serum miR-128 as a biomarker for the early diagnosis of glioma. Results revealed that miR-128 expression was significantly decreased in glioma preoperative serum compared with normal controls and meningioma serum samples (both P < 0.001). ROC analyses showed that serum miR-128 levels were reliable in distinguishing patients with glioma from normal controls and meningioma, with the area under the curve (AUC) values of 0.9095 and 0.8283, respectively. In addition, the AUC value for discriminating glioma II-IV from I was 0.7362. Importantly, serum miR-128 expression was significantly elevated after surgery (P < 0.001), although it didn’t reach to normal levels (P < 0.001). Furthermore, low miR-128 levels in serum and tissue were markedly correlated with high pathological grade and low Karnofsky Performance Status score (KPS). These findings proved that serum miR-128 could be a sensitive and specific biomarker of glioma.