It was reported that miRNAs played significant roles in cancer development. In this study, miR-940 was identified as one of the most downregulated miRNAs in the plasma of patients with gastric cancer. MiR-940 was downregulated in the training and validation set of plasma samples (both P<0.0001). The sensitivity and specificity were 81% and 99%, with an AUC of 0.966, obviously higher than the current biomarkers CEA and CA19-9. MiR-940 was also significantly downregulated in gastric cancer tissue samples (P=0.0015), as well as in gastric cancer cell lines. Importantly, miR-940 was significantly higher expressed in stomach tissues than tissues in liver, breast, thyroid, etc. Target prediction suggested that miR-940 regulated cell signaling including NF-kB and Wnt/β-catenin, as well as cell adhesion and cell-cell interaction. This is the first report that miR-940 may higher express in stomach tissues. Downregulation of plasma miR-940 may serve as a novel functional biomarker for gastric cancer.

Poster Session 1: no. P1.06