RESEARCH ARTICLE Low mir-372 expression c t

rd v with viral hepatitis B and cirrhosis [3]. Prognosis of demonstrated that miR-372 regulates the cell cycle, apop-Wu et al. BMC Cancer (2015) 15:182 DOI 10.1186/s12885-015-1214-0genesis and proliferation. However, the role of miR-372 inMedical University, Shenyang, Liaoning 110001, China Full list of author information is available at the end of the articlepatients with HCC has improved largely owing to the development of effective surgical techniques and diag-nostic methods over recent years. However, long-term prognosis is still unsatisfactory largely due to the high recurrence and invasion rates even after resection (50–70 % at 5 years) [4,5]. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) represent a class of endogenous, highly conserved, small nonprotein-coding RNAs that are tosis, invasion, and proliferation in many types of human cancers. For example, miR-372 promotes cell proliferation and cell cycle progression, and suppresses apoptosis in testicular germ cell tumors as well as in a gastric cancer cell line [10]. Yu et al. [11] identified miR-372 as a prog-nostic marker for the prediction of cancer relapse and sur-vival in non-small cell lung cancer patients independent of stage or histological type. Furthermore, Lai et al. [12] pro-vided evidence that miR-372 may post-transcriptionally downregulate the large tumor suppressor homolog 2 in non-small cell lung cancer patients resulting in tumori-* Correspondence