Expression and clinicopathological significance of AOC4P, PRNCR1, and PCAT1 lncRNAs in breast cancer

LincRNA PRNCR1 activates the Wnt/β-catenin pathway to drive the deterioration of hepatocellular carcinoma via regulating miR-411-3p/ZEB1 axis

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is an intractable malignant disease with high incidence rate annually. LincRNA PRNCR1 has been confirmed as a tumor supporter, while its functions in HCC remain unclear. This study aims to explore the mechanism of LincRNA PRNCR1 in hepatocellular carcinoma. The qRT-PCR was applied to the quantification of non-coding RNAs. Cell counting Kit-8 (CCK-8), Transwell assay and flow cytometry assay were applied to reflect the change in the phenotype of HCC cells. Moreover, the databases including Targetscan and Starbase and dual-luciferase reporter assay were applied to investigate the interaction of the genes. The western blot was applied to detect the abundance of proteins and the activity of the related pathways. Elevated LincRNA PRNCR1 was dramatically upregulated in HCC pathological samples and cell lines. MiR-411-3p served as a target of LincRNA PRNCR1, and decreased miR-411-3p was found in the clinical samples and cell lines. LincRNA PRNCR1 downregulation could induce the expression of miR-411-3p, and LincRNA PRNCR1 silence could impede the malignant behaviors via increasing the abundance of miR-411-3p. Zinc finger E-box binding homeobox 1 (ZEB1) was confirmed as a target of miR-411-3p, which remarkably upregulated in HCC cells, and ZEB1 upregulation could significantly rescue the effect of miR-411-3p on malignant behaviors of HCC cells. Moreover, LincRNA PRNCR1 was confirmed to involve the Wnt/β-catenin pathway via regulating miR-411-3p/ZEB1 axis. This study suggested that LincRNA PRNCR1 could drive the malignant progression of HCC via regulating miR-411-3p/ZEB1 axis.

Screening potential lncRNA biomarkers for breast cancer and colorectal cancer combining random walk and logistic matrix factorization

Breast cancer and colorectal cancer are two of the most common malignant tumors worldwide. They cause the leading causes of cancer mortality. Many researches have demonstrated that long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have close linkages with the occurrence and development of the two cancers. Therefore, it is essential to design an effective way to identify potential lncRNA biomarkers for them. In this study, we developed a computational method (LDA-RWLMF) by integrating random walk with restart and Logistic Matrix Factorization to investigate the roles of lncRNA biomarkers in the prognosis and diagnosis of the two cancers. We first fuse disease semantic and Gaussian association profile similarities and lncRNA functional and Gaussian association profile similarities. Second, we design a negative selection algorithm to extract negative LncRNA-Disease Associations (LDA) based on random walk. Third, we develop a logistic matrix factorization model to predict possible LDAs. We compare our proposed LDA-RWLMF method with four classical LDA prediction methods, that is, LNCSIM1, LNCSIM2, ILNCSIM, and IDSSIM. The results from 5-fold cross validation on the MNDR dataset show that LDA-RWLMF computes the best AUC value of 0.9312, outperforming the above four LDA prediction methods. Finally, we rank all lncRNA biomarkers for the two cancers after determining the performance of LDA-RWLMF, respectively. We find that 48 and 50 lncRNAs have the highest association scores with breast cancer and colorectal cancer among all lncRNAs known to associate with them on the MNDR dataset, respectively. We predict that lncRNAs HULC and HAR1A could be separately potential biomarkers for breast cancer and colorectal cancer and need to biomedical experimental validation.

A review on the role of PRNCR1 in human disorders with an especial focus on cancer

Prostate Cancer Associated Non-Coding RNA 1 (PRNCR1) is a long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) which is transcribed from chromosome 8, plus strand. This lncRNA has been reported to be an oncogenic transcript participating in the pathogenesis of several kinds of cancers. Some single nucleotide polymorphisms within this lncRNA affect cancer risk. Moreover, few studies have revealed its possible roles in some non-neoplastic conditions, such as cisplatin-induced acute kidney injury, osteolysis after hip replacement, preeclampsia and pulmonary disorders. In the present narrative review, we explain diverse roles of PRNCR1 in human disorders.

A Proposed TUSC7/miR-211/Nurr1 ceRNET Might Potentially be Disturbed by a cer-SNP rs2615499 in Breast Cancer

Evidence and in silico analyses showed that TUSC7, miR-211, and Nurr1 may be involved in BC pathogenesis by ceRNET signaling axis. This study aimed to investigate the potential role of TUSC7/miR-211/Nurr1 ceRNET and rs2615499 variant as a novel cer-SNP in BC subjects. The expression assays were conducted by qPCR on tumor tissues (n = 50), tumor-adjacent normal tissues (TANTs) (n = 50), and clinically healthy control tissues (n = 50). The expression of TUSC7 and Nurr1 significantly decreased, but the level of miR-211 significantly increased in tumor tissues compared to TANTs and healthy normal tissues. Altered expression of TUSC7 and miR-211 was associated with poor prognosis of patients. The Nurr1 exhibited a double-edged sword-like activity in BC. In addition, TUSC7, Nurr1, and miR-211 expressions were significantly related to a novel BC-associated rs2615499 (A > C) located in the miR-211 binding site on Nurr1 3'-UTR. In the second part of the study, a case-control study was performed on BC patients (n = 100) and matched healthy controls (n = 100). The genomic DNA was isolated and genotyping was performed using Tetra-Primer ARMS PCR. The CC and AC genotypes were associated with higher expression levels of Nurr1 and worse outcomes of the disease. Our findings revealed that TUSC7 functions as a tumor suppressor in BC potentially via miR-211/Nurr1, which might be disturbed by the cer-SNP rs2615499. However, functional studies are needed to validate these results.

PRNCR1: a long non-coding RNA with a pivotal oncogenic role in cancer

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been gaining importance in the field of cancer research in recent years. PRNCR1 (prostate cancer-associated non-coding RNA1) is a 12.7 kb, intron-less lncRNA found to play an oncogenic role in malignancy of diverse organs including prostate, breast, lung, oral cavity, colon and rectum. Single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of PRNCR1 locus have been found to be associated with cancer susceptibility in different populations. In this review, an attempt has been made for the first time to summarize all sorts of available data on PRNCR1 to date from relevant databases (GeneCard, LncExpDB, Ensembl genome browser, and PubMed). As functional roles of PRNCR1, miRNA (microRNA) sponging was mostly highlighted in the pathogenesis of different cancer; in addition, an association of the lncRNA with chromatin-modifying complex to enhance androgen receptor-mediated gene transcription was reported in prostate cancer. Diagnostic and prognostic importance of PRNCR1 was found in some malignancies suggesting potency of the lncRNA to serve as a clinical biomarker. For PRNCR1 SNPs, although cancer susceptibility of the risk alleles/genotypes was reported in different populations, majorities of the findings were not replicated and underlying molecular mechanisms remained unexplored. Therapeutic implication of PRNCR1 was not studied well and future research may come up in this direction for intervening novel strategies to fight against cancer.