Down-regulation of miR-655-3p predicts worse clinical outcome in patients suffering from hepatocellular carcinoma.

MiR-655-3p has been reported to play important roles in tumor initiation, development, and metastasis in several cancers. This study aimed to assess the potential role of miR-655-3p in the pathogenesis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).The expression levels of miR-655-3p in HCC tissues were detected by qPCR. The relationship between clinicopathologic characteristics and miR-655-3p was analyzed by chi-square test. Kaplan-Meier curves and multivariate Cox proportional models were used to study the impact on clinical outcome.miR-655-3p was significantly down- regulated in HCC tissues compared to normal adjacent liver tissues (p < 0.01). Low miR-655-3p expression was observed to be closely correlated with positive microvascular invasion, advanced tumor stage and lymph node metastasis (p < 0.05, respectively). The results of Kaplan-Meier analysis showed that patients with high miR-655-3p expression lived shorter than those with low miR-655-3p expression (Log-rank test, p = 0.0002). Multivariate analysis revealed that miR-655-3p was an independent risk factor for HCC (HR=1.533, 95% CI: 0.988-3.891; p = 0.002).Our data showed that low expression of miR-655-3p was associated with significant characteristics of patients with HCC, and it could function as a potential unfavorable prognostic biomarker.