Abstract: Objective: To investigate the expression level of miRNA-21 in whole saliva from oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) patients and their significance associated to tumor behavior. Methods: Thirty-eight male and twenty-six female OSCC patients aged from 29 to 76 years, were selected from January 2012 to June 2016. All OSCC patients were newly-diagnosed and treatment-free. Twenty-five healthy volunteers matching in sex and age were also enrolled as controls. MiRNA-21 expression in saliva was examined by Real-time PCR. Student t test was used to analyze the difference between OSCC group and control group. Results: The expressions of miRNA-21 in saliva was higher in OSCC patients(2.75±0.94) than those in the healthy control individual (0.78±0.45, P＜0.01). Up-regulated miRNA-21 expression level was associated with the tumor cell differentiation (P＜0.01) and lymph node metastasis (P＜0.05). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of miRNA-21 in the saliva about cell differentiation resulted in a diagnostic sensitivity of 89.5％ and specificity of 66.7% respectively. Conclusion: The expression level of miRNA-21 in whole saliva may be a valuable adjuvant parameter for predicting the growth and behavior of OSCC.

Key words:  oral squamous cell carcinoma, saliva, microRNA, miRNA-21

摘要： 目的：探讨miRNA-21在口腔鳞癌患者唾液上清中的表达及其临床意义。方法：以2012-01—2015-06期间，新余市人民医院口腔科收治的64例口腔鳞癌患者及25例健康对照人群为研究对象，收集唾液标本，采用实时定量聚合酶链反应技术，检测唾液标本中miRNA-21表达情况，并分析其与口腔鳞癌临床病理学特征之间的联系。结果：口腔鳞癌患者唾液上清液中miRNA-21的表达水平(2.75±0.94)显著高于健康对照组(0.78±0.45，P＜0.01)。相关性分析结果显示，唾液上清液中miRNA-21表达水平与口腔鳞癌细胞分化程度(P＜0.01)及淋巴结转移状态(P＜0.05)显著相关。受试者工作特征曲线分析结果显示，唾液上清液中miRNA-21表达水平，评价口腔鳞癌细胞分化程度的敏感性和特异性为89.5％和66.7%。结论：口腔鳞癌患者唾液上清液中miRNA-21的表达上调，可能与口腔鳞癌的发生发展有关，唾液中miRNA-21可作为评价口腔鳞癌细胞分化的辅助指标。

关键词: 口腔鳞癌, 唾液, 微小RNA, miRNA-21

CLC Number: 

• R782

• R739.85