Fig. 1

A panel of five serum-derived circulating miRNAs and their potential for diagnosing CRC. A Expression levels of serum-derived circulating miRNAs in CRC patients compared to healthy controls. Circulating miR-20a-5p and miR-122-5p were significantly higher in CRC serum samples compared to healthy controls. In contrast, miR-139-3p, miR-143-5p, and miR-193a-5p were lower in CRC serum samples than in normal samples. B Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was used to assess whether the candidate miRNAs can be potential biomarkers for CRC diagnosis. All miRNAs exhibited satisfactory Area Under the Curve (AUC) values, with miR-20a-5p at 0.87, miR-122-5p at 0.84, miR-139-3p at 0.78, miR-143-5p at 0.79, and miR-193a-5p at 0.80. Crucially, these AUC values held significant statistical significance (all p-values are < 0.001), affirming the capacity of these miRNAs to successfully distinguish between CRC and healthy groups. C The expression levels of circulating miRNAs in association with TNM stage I-III. While the expression levels of miR-20a-5p and miR-122-5p were higher in advanced stages of tumorigenesis, other miRNAs (i.e., miR-139.30, miR-143-3p, and miR-193a-5p) showed a positive correlation with early stages of tumorigenesis. D The expression levels of circulating miRNAs in CRC patients with positive and negative lymph node metastasis (LNM). While high expression of miR-20a-5p and miR-122-5p was found in LNM positive patients, the expression levels of miR-143-3p and miR-193a-5p were higher in patients without LNM. No significant differences were found for miR-139-3p between positive and negative LNM status