UC San Diego

Esophageal cancer is one of the deadliest cancers worldwide. It typically has a poor overall prognosis because of diagnosis in advanced stages. Sensitive biomarkers for the early detection of esophageal cancer are urgently needed to reduce the high mortality of this disease. Circulating microRNAs (miRNAs) are emerging as a novel non-invasive biomarker for cancer diagnosis due to its high stability and specificity. In this study, we profiled circulating miRNAs in serum of patients with esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) using the Solexa sequencing analysis. The analysis demonstrated marked differences of more than 195 circulating miRNAs including 96 of upregulated and 99 of downregulated miRNA in EAC patients compared with healthy subjects. Quantitative reverse transcription PCR verified that the concentrations of circulating miR-25-3p and miR-151a-3p were significantly elevated, while the concentrations of miR-100-5p and miR-375 were significantly decreased in EAC patients compared with healthy controls. These data indicate the profile of these 4 miRNAs may potentially serve as a serum biomarker to identify patients with EAC, and circulating miRNA profiling may be clinically useful for early detection or treatment response in EAC patients.