Volume 18, No 10, Oct 2008

ISSN: 1001-0602 
EISSN: 1748-7838 2018 
impact factor 17.848* 
(Clarivate Analytics, 2019)

Volume 18 Issue 10, October 2008: 997-1006

ORIGINAL ARTICLES

Characterization of microRNAs in serum: a novel class of biomarkers for diagnosis of cancer and other diseases

Xi Chen^1,*, Yi Ba^2,*, Lijia Ma^3,4,*, Xing Cai¹, Yuan Yin¹, Kehui Wang¹, Jigang Guo¹, Yujing Zhang¹, Jiangning Chen¹, Xing Guo¹, Qibin Li^3,4, Xiaoying Li⁵, Wenjing Wang⁶, Yan Zhang¹, Jin Wang¹, Xueyuan Jiang¹, Yang Xiang¹, Chen Xu¹, Pingping Zheng³, Juanbin Zhang³, Ruiqiang Li³, Hongjie Zhang¹, Xiaobin Shang², Ting Gong², Guang Ning⁵, Jun Wang^3,4, Ke Zen¹, Junfeng Zhang¹ and Chen-Yu Zhang¹

¹Jiangsu Diabetes Center, State Key Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, School of Life Sciences, Nanjing University, 22 Hankou Road, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210093, China
²Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital, Tianjin 300000, China

³Beijing Genomics Institute, Shenzhen 518083, China

⁴Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 101300, China

⁵Department of Endocrine and Metabolic Diseases, Ruijin Hospital Affiliated to The Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200025, China

⁶Shanghai Municipal Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Shanghai 200336, China Correspondence: Chen-Yu Zhang Junfeng Zhang, Ke Zen, Jun Wang,(cyzhang@nju.edu.cn; jfzhang@nju.edu.cn; kzen@nju.edu.cn; wangj@genomics.org.cn)

Dysregulated expression of microRNAs (miRNAs) in various tissues has been associated with a variety of diseases, including cancers. Here we demonstrate that miRNAs are present in the serum and plasma of humans and other animals such as mice, rats, bovine fetuses, calves, and horses. The levels of miRNAs in serum are stable, reproducible, and consistent among individuals of the same species. Employing Solexa, we sequenced all serum miRNAs of healthy Chinese subjects and found over 100 and 91 serum miRNAs in male and female subjects, respectively. We also identified specific expression patterns of serum miRNAs for lung cancer, colorectal cancer, and diabetes, providing evidence that serum miRNAs contain fingerprints for various diseases. Two non-small cell lung cancer-specific serum miRNAs obtained by Solexa were further validated in an independent trial of 75 healthy donors and 152 cancer patients, using quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction assays. Through these analyses, we conclude that serum miRNAs can serve as potential biomarkers for the detection of various cancers and other diseases.

Cell Research (2008) 18:997-1006. doi: 10.1038/cr.2008.282; published online 2 September 2008

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