Evaluation of miR-21 Expression in the Gastric Mucosa of Patients with Chronic Gastritis as the Predictive Factor of Gastric Cancer

The aim of the study was to evaluate the potential of miR-21 expression in the gastric mucosa as the marker of early stage gastric adenocarcinoma and cancer development.

Material and methods. The study included the following materials: the first group consisted of surgical material of 60 stomachs (gastric cancer of intestinal type), in each case, 1 fragment of tumor tissue and 4 specimens of the gastric mucosa of the distant zone (2 – antrum mucosa and 2 – fundal mucosa) were taken; the second group consisted of biopsy material of 62 cases in patients with chronic gastritis (5 specimens according to the OLGA-system protocol). The level of miR-21 expression in tissues was determined by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction.

Results. miR-21 expression in samples with gastric cancer was significantly higher (median – 158, p=0.0006) compared with the group of endoscopic biopsies of the gastric mucosa (median – 42). The highest level of expression was observed in adenocarcinoma tissues (median – 270), while there were no significant differences when comparing it with the level of miR-21 expression in samples of the distant zone mucosa (p=0.2).тIncreased miR-21 expression may indicate the high risk group of developing gastric adenocarcinoma, probablyтbefore the appearance of histological signs of neoplasia.

Conclusion. Regression analysis performed to confirm the predictive potential of miR-21 expression demonstrated 13-fold increased risk of adenocarcinoma development associated with an increase in miR-21 levels for every 50 units of relative expression normalized to small U6 RNA. The constructed statistical model, which includes morphological criteria for evaluating the gastric mucosa and miR-21 expression, may reflect the degree of violation of cellular epigenetic molecular pathways and allows increasing the prognostic value of a biopsy investigation and the accuracy of a stratified assessment of the gastric adenocarcinoma risk development

chronic gastritis, stomach cancer, microRNA

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