Objective To investigate the relationship between the expression of DCAF7 and miR-98-3p in colorectal cancer and the clinicopathological characteristics.

Methods A total of 70 patients with colorectal cancer who underwent radical resection in Liaoning Cancer Hospital were selected as research objects. Colorectal cancer tissues and adjacent normal tissues were collected during the operation. Immunohistochemical staining method was used to detect the distribution of DCAF7 in colorectal cancer tissues, western blot method was used to detect the level of DCAF7 protein in colorectal cancer tissues, quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) method was used to detect the level of miR-98-3p in colorectal cancer tissues, Pearson method was used to analyze the correlation between DCAF7 and miR-98-3p expression.

Results The expression level of DCAF7 (0.61±0.11) in cancer tissues of patients with colorectal cancer was significantly up-regulated, and the expression level of miR-98-3p (1.93±0.34) was significantly down-regulated (P < 0.05); the expression levels of DCAF7 and miR-98-3p in colorectal cancer tissues were significantly negatively correlated (r=-0.376, P < 0.05); receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve results showed that the area under the curve (AUC) of peripheral blood DCAF7 protein and miR-98-3p content in evaluating colorectal cancer were 0.864 and 0.835, respectively, with corresponding sensitivity of 82.86% and 90.00%, specificity of 78.57% and 68.57%, respectively. The AUC of their combined evaluation of colorectal cancer was 0.952, the sensitivity was 97.14%, and the specificity was 77.14%.

Conclusion DCAF7 is significantly highly expressed in colorectal cancer tissues, while miR-98-3p is lowly expressed in colorectal cancer tissues, which is negatively correlated with DCAF7 and miR-98-3p, and is closely related to some clinicopathological features of colorectal cancer patients. DCAF7 and miR-98-3p are expected to be potential indicators for the diagnosis of colorectal cancer.