Background: MiR-24/378 is thought to be onco-miRNAs for their ability of enhancing tumor growth. The objective of this study was to evaluate the potential predictive value of miR-24/378 expression in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissues of breast cancer patients.
Methods: The expression of miR-24/378 was examined in 101 breast cancer patients and 40 controls using real-time quantitative PCR. All statistical analyses were performed using SPSS16.0.
Results: We found that miR-24 and miR-378 were significantly up-regulated in breast cancer patients compared with controls (all P < 0.01). The expression levels of the two miRNAs were highly correlated with each other in breast cancer patients, with r = 0.778 between miR-24 and miR-378. Moreover, the two miRNAs exhibited great capability of discriminating between cancer patients and controls by ROC analysis. MiR-24 and miR-378 showed 0.79 and 0.807 AUC values respectively.
Conclusions: Over-expression of miR-24 and miR-378 in FFPE tissue of breast cancer patients might conduct as an ideal source for biomarker discovery and validation in breast cancer patients.
Keywords: Biomarkers; breast cancer; formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded; miR-24; miR-378.