Identification of microRNA Biomarkers for the Diagnosis of Hepatocellular Carcinoma Using TCGA Data

Objectives: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains a leading cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide.Although abdominal ultrasonography and serum alpha-fetoprotein are widely used for surveillance in high-risk populations, additional biomarkers are needed as complementary tools in cases where imaging findings are equivocal or early lesions are difficult to characterize.MicroRNAs (miRNAs), a class of small non-coding regulatory RNAs, have attracted growing attention as candidate diagnostic biomarkers across multiple cancer types.Methods: A systematic bioinformatics analysis was performed on miRNA sequencing data obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas liver hepatocellular carcinoma project to delineate differentially expressed miRNAs between HCC tumor tissues and paired adjacent non-tumor (NT) liver tissues.Differential expression analysis, hierarchical clustering, volcano plot analysis, and receiver operating characteristic curve analysis assessment were conducted.Results: Twelve miRNAs (hsa-mir-1258, hsa-mir-424, hsa-mir-145, hsa-mir-450a-1, hsa-mir-450a-2, hsa-mir-10a, hsa-mir-511-1, hsa-mir-326, hsa-mir-1274b, hsa-mir-511-2, hsa-mir-199b, and hsa-mir-490) were identified as significantly downregulated in HCC tissues compared to NT tissues, and further filtered based on statistical significance (P < 0.05) and diagnostic value (area under the curve [AUC] ≥ 0.80).All 12 candidate miRNAs demonstrated AUC values ≥ 0.80, with hsa-mir-1258 showing the highest diagnostic value. Conclusion:The identified miRNA signatures may serve as promising complementary biomarkers that enhance the diagnostic assessment of HCC, particularly in cases where conventional imaging or serum markers yield inconclusive findings.