Systemic Investigation Identifying Salivary miR-196b as a Promising Biomarker for Early Detection of Head-Neck Cancer and Oral Precancer Lesions

• Main Authors: Ann-Joy Cheng, Guo-Rung You, Che-Jui Lee, Ya-Ching Lu, Shang-Ju Tang, Yi-Fang Huang, Yu-Chen Huang, Li-Yu Lee, Kang-Hsing Fan, Yen-Chao Chen, Shiang-Fu Huang, Joseph Tung-Chieh Chang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-08-01
• Series: Diagnostics
• Subjects: miR-196b; salivary biomarker; head-neck cancer; oral precancer lesion; diagnosis; early detection
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4418/11/8/1411

Background: Liquid biopsy is a rapidly growing field, for it may provide a minimally invasive way to acquire pathological data for personalized medicine. This study developed a systemic strategy to discover an effective salivary biomarker for early detection of patients with head-neck squamous carcinoma (HNSC) and oral precancer lesion (OPC). Methods: A total of 10 miRNAs were examined in parallel with multiple independent cohorts. These included a training set of salivary samples from HNSC patients, the TCGA-HNSC and GSE31277 cohorts to differentiate miRNAs between tumor and normal tissues, and groups of salivary samples from healthy individuals, patients with HNSC and OPC. Results: The combined results from the salivary training set and the TCGA-HNSC cohort showed that four miRNAs (miR-148b, miR-155, miR-196b, and miR-31) consistently increased in HNSC patients. Further integration with the GSE31277 cohort, two miRNAs (miR-31 and miR-196b) maintained at high significances. Further assessment showed that salivary miR-196b was a prominent diagnostic biomarker, as it remarkably discriminated between healthy individuals and patients with HNSC (<i>p</i> < 0.0001, AUC = 0.767, OR = 5.64) or OPC (<i>p</i> < 0.0001, AUC = 0.979, OR = 459). Conclusion: Salivary miR-196b could be an excellent biomarker for diagnosing OPC and early detection of HNSC. This molecule may be used for early screening high-risk groups of HNSC.