Abstract Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most frequently diagnosed cancer and the second leading cause of cancer-related fatalities worldwide, representing a major health concern. To improve outcomes, the early diagnosis of CRC is crucial; however, due to the nonspecific early symptoms, most CRC cases are detected at late stages. The circular RNA (circRNA) produced by the isoprenylcysteine carboxyl methyltransferase (IMCT) gene (circICMT), long intergenic non-protein coding RNA 908 ((LINC00908), and DEAD-box helicase 54 (DDX54) messenger RNA (mRNA) are promising biomarkers for the early diagnosis of CRC. The present study involved 65 samples obtained from (non-metastatic and metastatic) CRC tissues and adjacent non-cancerous tissues as controls. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) was used to assess the expression levels of circICMT, LINC00908, and DDX54 mRNA in these samples. The expression level of circICMT was significantly higher in metastatic CRC than in nonmetastatic CRC samples (p = 0.001). Both cancer groups exhibited significantly-elevated circICMT and significantly-lower LINC00908 expression levels compared to the non-cancerous tissues (p < 0.001 for both). A significant difference was also found between non-metastatic and metastatic CRC patients (p = 0.021). The results from the qRT-PCR analysis of DDX54 mRNA expression revealed significant overexpression in CRC tissues in relation to the adjacent non-cancerous tissues (p < 0.001), and no significant difference was detected between the two cancer groups. The relative expression levels of circICMT, LINC00908, and DDX54 mRNA were able to differentiate patients with colorectal adenocarcinoma from healthy controls. However, only circICMT and LINC00908 could distinguish early-stage from metastatic cases. Therefore, these two markers may serve as potential biomarkers for discriminating early-stage from advanced colorectal cancer (CRC).
Amin et al. (Thu,) studied this question.