RETRACTED ARTICLE: Downregulation of miR-133b/miR-503 acts as efficient prognostic and diagnostic factors in patients with osteosarcoma and these predictor biomarkers are correlated with overall survival

It has been suggested that microRNAs can act as prognostic markers, diagnostic markers, and potential thera- peutic targets. Therefore, it can be useful to evaluate the ex- pression level of miR-133b/miR-503 in clinical samples. Our study was aimed to evaluate miR-133b/miR-503 expression levels in patient's tissues suffering from osteosarcoma. The association of miR-133/miR-503 expressions with path- ological factors was evaluated. Total RNA was purified from patients with osteosarcoma and noncancerous bone tissues, and real-time PCR was used to assess the expression rates of miR-133b and miR-503. Our results indicated that the miR-133b expression was strongly lower in osteosarcoma bone tissue compared with noncancerous bone tissues. Furthermore, expression level of miR-503 was decreased in osteosarcoma bone tissue than those corresponding noncan- cerous bone tissues. Our findings showed that low expression of miR-133b was remarkably correlated to large size of tumor (P=0.031), advanced TNM stage (P=0.003), and metastasis or recurrence (P=0.012). In addition, low expression of miR-503 were strongly linked to large tumor size (P=0.027), advanced TNM stage (P=0.006), and metastasis or recurrence (P=0.25). Furthermore, Kaplan-Meier survival analysis and log-rank test revealed that the low expressions of miR-133b/miR-503 were correlated with shorter overall sur- vival(log-ranktestP=0.019;P=0.028).ThemultivariateCox proportional hazards model suggested that decreased expres- sions of miR-133b/miR-503 (P=0.027; P=0.021), TNM stage (P=0.021; P=0.001), metastasis (P=0.001; P=0.037), and large tumor size (P=0.035; P=0.023) were independent prognostic markers of overall survival of patients. Our result indicated that miR-133b/miR-503 expression levels in tissues may be useful as efficient prognostic factors in patients suf- fering from osteosarcoma, and that downregulation of miR-133b/miR-503 are correlated with overall survival.