Expression of microRNA-211 is a novel prognostic indicator of poor survival in human gastric cancer

Purpose: MicroRNA (miR)-211 was previously identified as a candidate biomarker for screening gastric cancer (GC) samples from noncancerous gastric samples based on miRNA microarray expression profiles. The current study aimed to explore the clinical significance of miR-211 expression in human GC. Methods: Expression levels of miR-211 in 160 pairs of human GC and matched normal mucosa tissues were detected by quantitative polymerase chain reaction. Then, the associations of miR-211 expression with various clinicopathological characteristics and patients’ prognosis were evaluated. Results: The expression level of miR-211 in GC tissues was significantly higher than that in matched normal mucosa (GC vs. Normal: 4.05±1.04 vs. 2.10±0.92, P<0.001). In addition, the overexpression of miR-211 (miR-211-high) was more frequently found in GC tissues with positive lymph node metastasis (P = 0.01), advanced TNM stage (P = 0.002) and great depth of invasion (P = 0.03). Moreover, high miR-211 expression was significantly associated with poor disease-free and overall survivals. Furthermore, multivariate analysis revealed that high miR-211 expression was an independent predictive marker for a poor prognosis in patients with GC. Conclusions: These findings suggest that miR-211 overexpression may promote the aggressive progression and increase the risk of death and relapse of patients with GC. MiR-211 might be a novel promising indicator for survival of this disease.