Role of long noncoding RNA UCA1 as a common molecular marker for lymph node metastasis and prognosis in various cancers: a meta-analysis

Unveiling the connection: Long-chain non-coding RNAs and critical signaling pathways in breast cancer

Breast cancer is a complex and diverse condition that disrupts multiple signaling pathways essential for cell proliferation, survival, and differentiation. Recently, the significant involvement of long-chain non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) in controlling key signaling pathways associated with breast cancer development has been discovered. This review aims to explore the interaction between lncRNAs and various pathways, including the AKT/PI3K/mTOR, Wnt/β-catenin, Notch, DNA damage response, TGF-β, Hedgehog, and NF-κB signaling pathways, to gain a comprehensive understanding of their roles in breast cancer. The AKT/PI3K/mTOR pathway regulates cell growth, survival, and metabolic function. Recent data suggests that specific lncRNAs can influence the functioning of this pathway, acting as either oncogenes or tumor suppressors. Dysregulation of this pathway is commonly observed in breast cancer cases. Moreover, breast cancer development has been associated with other pathways such as Wnt/β-catenin, Notch, TGF-β, Hedgehog, and NF-κB. Emerging studies have identified lncRNAs that modulate breast cancer's growth, progression, and metastasis by interacting with these pathways. To advance the development of innovative diagnostic tools and targeted treatment options, it is crucial to comprehend the intricate relationship between lncRNAs and vital signaling pathways in breast cancer. By fully harnessing the therapeutic potential of lncRNAs, there is a possibility of developing more effective and personalized therapy choices for breast cancer patients. Further investigation is necessary to comprehensively understand the role of lncRNAs within breast cancer signaling pathways and fully exploit their therapeutic potential.

Unraveling UCA1 lncRNA prognostic utility in urothelial bladder cancer

In the era of precision oncology, bladder cancer (BlCa) is characterized by generic patient management and lack of personalized prognosis and surveillance. Herein, we have studied the clinical significance of urothelial cancer associated 1 (UCA1) lncRNA in improving patients' risk stratification and prognosis. A screening cohort of 176 BlCa patients was used for UCA1 quantification. The Hedegaard et al. (n = 476) and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) provisional (n = 413) were analyzed as validation cohorts for non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) and muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC), respectively. Patients' survival outcome was assessed using recurrence and progression for NMIBC or death for MIBC as clinical endpoint events. Bootstrap analysis was performed for internal validation of Cox regression analysis, whereas the clinical benefit of disease prognosis was assessed by decision curve analysis. UCA1 was significantly overexpressed in bladder tumors compared with normal urothelium, which was confirmed only in the case of NMIBC. Interestingly, reduced expression of UCA1 was correlated with muscle-invasive disease as well as with tumors of higher stage and grade. UCA1 loss was strongly associated with higher risk of short-term relapse [hazard ratio (HR) = 1.974; P = 0.032] and progression to invasive stages (HR = 3.476; P = 0.023) in NMIBC. In this regard, Hedegaard et al. and TCGA validation cohorts confirmed the unfavorable prognostic nature of UCA1 loss in BlCa. Finally, prognosis prediction models integrating UCA1 underexpression and established clinical disease markers contributed to improved stratification specificity and superior clinical benefit for NMIBC prognosis. Underexpression of UCA1 correlates with worse disease outcome in NMIBC and contributes to superior prediction of disease early relapse and progression as well as improved patient stratification specificity.

Identification of an exosomal long non-coding RNAs panel for predicting recurrence risk in patients with colorectal cancer

Recurrence is a major cause of cancer-related deaths in colorectal cancer (CRC) patients, but the current strategies are limited to predict this clinical behavior. Our aim is to develop a recurrence prediction model based on long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) in exosomes of serum to improve the prediction accuracy. In discovery phase, 11 lncRNAs were found to be associated with CRC recurrence in tissues using high-throughput lncRNAs microarray and reverse transcription quantitative real-time PCR. And, 9 of them were correlated with their expression levels of serum exosomes. In training phase, a model based on 5-exosomal lncRNAs (exolncRNAs) panel was constructed, and showed high distinguish capability for recurrent CRC patients. ROC showed the panel was superior to serum CEA and CA19-9 in prediction of CRC recurrence. In both training and test sets, high-risk patients defined by the 5-exolncRNAs panel had poor recurrence free and overall survival. And, COX model showed it was an independent factor for CRC prognosis. Moreover, there was a significant relationship in detection of 5-exolncRNAs between plasma samples and paired serum samples. In summary, the 5-exolncRNAs panel robustly stratifies CRC patients’ risk of recurrence, enabling more accurate prediction of prognosis.

The long non-coding RNA, urothelial carcinoma associated 1, promotes cell growth, invasion, migration, and chemo-resistance in glioma through Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway

The long non-coding RNA, urothelial carcinoma associated 1 (UCA1) has been demonstrated to play important roles in various types of cancers. This study investigated the functional role of UCA1 in glioma and explored the underlying molecular mechanisms. UCA1 was found to be highly up-regulated in glioma cells, and knock-down of UCA1 inhibited cell growth, invasion and migration, and also induced apoptosis in glioma cells. On the other hand, overexpression of UCA1 promoted cell proliferation, cell invasion and migration in glioma cells. Knock-down of UCA1 suppressed the activity of Wnt/β-catenin signaling, and treatment with lithium chloride restored the inhibitory effect of UCA1 knock-down on cell invasion and migration. More importantly, the aberrant expression of UCA1 was associated with chemo-resistance to cisplatin and temozolomide in glioma cells via interacting with Wnt/β-catenin signaling. In vivo studies showed that overexpression of UCA1 promoted the in vivo tumor growth of U87 cells in the nude mice. Clinically, UCA1 was found to be up-regulated in glioma tissues and higher expression level of UCA1 was correlated with poor survival in patients with glioma. Taken together, our results showed that UCA1 had a functional role in the regulation of glioma cell growth, invasion and migration, and chemo-resistance possibly via Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway.

Non-coding RNAs as Regulators of Lymphangiogenesis in Lymphatic Development, Inflammation, and Cancer Metastasis

Non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs), which do not encode proteins, have pivotal roles in manipulating gene expression in development, physiology, and pathology. Emerging data have shown that ncRNAs can regulate lymphangiogenesis, which refers to lymphatics deriving from preexisting vessels, becomes established during embryogenesis, and has a close relationship with pathological conditions such as lymphatic developmental diseases, inflammation, and cancer. This review summarizes the molecular mechanisms of lymphangiogenesis in lymphatic development, inflammation and cancer metastasis, and discusses ncRNAs' regulatory effects on them. Therapeutic targets with regard to lymphangiogenesis are also discussed.

HCMDB: the human cancer metastasis database

Metastasis is the main event leading to death in cancer patients. Over the past decade, high-throughput technologies have provided genome-wide view of transcriptomic changes associated with cancer metastases. Many microarray and RNA sequencing studies have addressed metastases-related expression patterns in various types of cancer, and the number of relevant works continues to increase rapidly. These works have characterized genes that orchestrate the metastatic phenotype of cancer cells. However, these expression data have been deposited in various repositories, and efficiently analyzing these data is still difficult because of the lack of an integrated data mining platform. To facilitate the in-depth analyses of transcriptome data on metastasis, it is quite important to make a comprehensive integration of these metastases-related expression data. Here, we presented a database, HCMDB (the human cancer metastasis database, http://hcmdb.i-sanger.com/index), which is freely accessible to the research community query cross-platform transcriptome data on metastases. HCMDB is developed and maintained as a useful resource for building the systems-biology understanding of metastasis.

LncRNA UCA1 acts as a sponge of miR-204 to up-regulate CXCR4 expression and promote prostate cancer progression

Prostate cancer (PCa) is a devastating malignant disease with a poor prognosis. The aim of current study is to investigate the role of lncRNA-urothelial carcinoma associated 1 (UCA1) in the progression of PCa. We evaluated the expression levels of UCA1 in a total of 16 benign prostatic hyperplasia tissues (BPH) and 40 PCa tissues, as well as PCa cells. The functional regulatory effects of UCA1 were investigated using a series of cell function approaches. Our data showed that UCA1 is frequently overexpressed in PCa tissues compared with BPH tissues (P<0.01). Moreover, the higher expression of UCA1 was observed in patients with Gleason score ≥8 (P<0.05). In consistent, we found the expression levels of UCA1 was higher in the PCa cell lines PC-3, LnCaP, and DU-145 than in the normal prostate epithelial cell line RWPE-1 (P<0.01). Functionally, we found knockdown of UCA1 in PC-3 significantly suppressed cell growth and invasion of PC-3, while overexpression of UCA1 in DU-145 cells promote cell growth and invasion. Mechanistically, UCA1 overexpression permitted activation of CXCR4 oncogenes through inhibition of miR-204 activity, as evidenced by the positive association of these two genes with UCA1 levels and inverse correlation with miR-204 expression in PCa tissues. Luciferase activity assay further confirmed the targetting relationship between UCA1 and miR-204, CXCR4, and miR-204. The up-regulation of UCA1 in PC-3 cells significantly impaired the inhibitory effect of miR-204 on CXCR4 expression. Taken together, our research revealed that UCA1 works as an oncogene by targetting miR-204. The UCA1-miR-204-CXCR4 regulatory network regulated the growth and metastasis of PCa, providing new insight in the management of patients with such malignancy.

Investigating the diagnostic performance of HOTTIP, PVT1, and UCA1 long noncoding RNAs as a predictive panel for the screening of colorectal cancer patients with lymph node metastasis

Like other noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs), dysregulation of long ncRNAs (lncRNAs) has been associated with various clinicopathological features of colorectal cancer (CRC) patients such as lymph node metastasis (LNM). Recently, three aberrant expressed oncogenic lncRNA (onco-lncRNAs), including HOXA transcript at the distal tip (HOTTIP), plasmacytoma variant translocation 1 (PVT1), and urothelial carcinoma associated 1 (UCA1) have been reported in LNM. Herein, we compared the diagnostic performance of these lncRNAs as individual biomarkers and as a discriminating panel between LNM CRC patients, nonmetastatic lymph nodes (NLN) and normal healthy subjects. The lncRNAs expression level was measured by quantitative real-time PCR and analyzed by the Mann-Whitney U test. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was applied to evaluate the diagnostic power. The Kaplan-Meier survival analysis was performed to outline the overall survival (OS) of CRC patients with an abnormal level of lncRNAs. The area under the ROC curve (AUC) of the overexpressed HOTTIP (0.7817; 95% CI, 0.6809-0.8824), PVT1 (0.8559; 95% CI, 0.7737-0.9382), and UCA1 (0.8135; 95% CI, 0.722-0.9051) introduced them as individual CRC biomarkers. As a predictive panel, the AUC values of the HOTTIP, PVT1, and UCA1 for training set were 0.9256 (95% CI, 0.8634-0.9879; all CRCs), 0.8708 (95% CI, 0.7709-0.9378; NLN) and 0.9804 (95% CI, 0.9585-0.9998; LNM), and for validation set were 0.9286 (95% CI, 0.8752-0.9820; all CRCs), 0.8911 (95% CI, 0.8238-0.9585; NLN), and 0.9833 (95% CI, 0.9642-1.002; LNM), respectively. Also, HOTTIP/PVT1/UCA1 panel dysregulation had a marked correlation with patient's OS in training set (logrank test P = 0.0121; hazard ratio [HR], 0.1225; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.02376-0.6312), and in validation set (logrank test P < 0.0001, HR, 0.2003; 95% CI, 0.08942-0.4486). These data showed that the combination of HOTTIP, PVT1, and UCA1 as a predictive panel, has a better diagnostic performance than each of these lncRNAs individually, and could be used for the screening of patients with advanced CRC.

Transcriptomic model-based lncRNAs and mRNAs serve as independent prognostic indicators in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma

Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSC) is one of most common types of cancer worldwide, and mRNAs and long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been identified as prognostic biomarkers in HNSC. In the present study, using gene expression datasets from multiple platforms, survival-associated genes in HNSC were identified. Subsequently, a combination of 17 genes (14 mRNAs and 3 lncRNA) was optimized using random forest variable hunting and a risk score model for HNSC prognosis was developed using a cohort from The Cancer Genome Atlas. Patients with high-risk scores tend to have earlier disease recurrence and lower survival rates, compared with those with low-risk scores. This observation was further validated in three independent datasets (GSE41613, GSE10300 and E-MTAB-302). Association analysis revealed that the risk score is independent of other clinicopathological observations. On the basis of the results depicted in the nomogram, the risk score performs better in 3-year survival rate prediction than other clinical observations. In summary, the lncRNA-mRNA signature-based risk score successfully predicts the survival of HNSC and serves as an indicator of prognosis.

Long noncoding RNA DNAJC3-AS1 promotes osteosarcoma progression via its sense-cognate gene DNAJC3

Long noncoding RNAs have been proved to play essential roles in tumor development and progression. In this study, we focused on DNAJC3-AS1 and investigated its biological function and clinical significance in osteosarcoma. We detected the expression of DNAJC3-AS1 in 30 pairs of matched osteosarcoma and adjacent nontumorous specimens and osteosarcoma cell lines and analyzed association between DNAJC3-AS1 levels and clinicopathological factors. We found that DNAJC3-AS1 expression was up-regulated in osteosarcoma. High level of DNAJC3-AS1 was correlated with high differentiated degree (P = 0.018) and advanced Enneking stage (P = 0.016). Mechanistically, DNAJC3-AS1 enhanced cell proliferation, migration, and invasion in vitro and in vivo and reduced sensitivity of osteosarcoma to cisplatin. These effects of DNAJC3-AS1 were reversed by down-regulation of its sense-cognate gene DNAJC3. Thus, DNAJC3-AS1 promotes osteosarcoma development and progression by regulating DNAJC3 and might be a biomarker and therapeutic target for osteosarcoma.

LncRNA UCA1 sponges miR-206 to exacerbate oxidative stress and apoptosis induced by ox-LDL in human macrophages

Long noncoding RNA UCA1 has exerted a significant effect in cardiovascular disease. The biological role of UCA1 in atherosclerosis is unclear. Our study was to identify the potential mechanisms in the progression of atherosclerosis. Here, we observed that ox-LDL increased UCA1 expression greatly in THP-1 cells. Knockdown of UCA1 greatly inhibited CD36 expression, a crucial biomarker in atherosclerosis. Meanwhile, 20 μg/ml ox-LDL induced foam cell formation, which can be reversed by downregulation of UCA1. In addition, TC and TG levels induced by ox-LDL was rescued by UCA1 small interfering RNA. Accumulating studies have indicated that oxidative stress contributes to atherosclerosis progression. Here, we also found that reactive oxygen species, MDA, and THP-1 cell apoptosis were restrained by decreased of UCA1 with an increase of the superoxide dismutase activity. Moreover, miR-206 was predicted as a target of UCA1 and knockdown of UCA1 was able to repress miR-206 expression. Furthermore, overexpression of miR-206 inhibited oxidative stress process and it was reversed by UCA1 upregulation in vitro. In conclusion, we indicated that UCA1 sponged miR-206 to exacerbate atherosclerosis events induced by ox-LDL in THP-1 cells.

lncRNA involvement in hepatocellular carcinoma metastasis and prognosis

Eukaryotic lncRNAs are RNA molecules defined to be greater than 200 bp in length that are not translated to a protein and operate through several mechanisms, including participating in chromatin remodeling and methylation, influencing the integrity and stability of proteins and complexes, or acting as a sponge for miRNA inhibition. A number of recent studies have concentrated on the relationship between long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) and cancer. Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most prevalent histological type of liver tumors, accounting for about 80 % of the cases worldwide. Lack of proper molecular markers for diagnosis of HCC and treatment evaluation is a significant problem. Dysregulated expression of HCC-related lncRNAs such as MEG-3, MALAT1, HULC, HOTAIR, and H19 have been identified and closely related with tumorigenesis, metastasis, prognosis and diagnosis. In this review, we summarized recent highlighted functions and molecular mechanisms of the most extensively studied lncRNAs in the pathophysiology of hepatocellular carcinoma and their potential for serving as probable therapeutic targets.

Knockdown of long noncoding RNA urothelial carcinoma-associated 1 inhibits cell viability, migration, and invasion by regulating microRNA-182 in gastric carcinoma

BACKGROUND

Long noncoding RNA urothelial carcinoma-associated 1 (UCA1) has been reported to be a vital mediator in various cancers. But, in terms of gastric cancer (GC), the effects of UCA1 on GC cell proliferation, migration, invasion, and apoptosis remain unclear. This study aimed to uncover the potential regulatory mechanism of UCA1 in GC cells.

METHODS

The expression level of UCA1 was first examined in the five different cell lines of HEK293, CCL-153, HUVEC, SUN-216, and SGC-7901 using a reverse-transcriptase quantitative polymerase chain reaction. Then, the vectors of short hairpin UCA1, the microRNA-182 (miR-182) mimic/inhibitor, and the pEX-tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinases 2 (TIMP2)/small interfering TIMP2 were transfected into SUN-216 and SGC-7901 cells to alter UCA1, miR-182, and TIMP2 expression. To investigate the biological functions, cell viability, migration, invasion, and apoptosis were examined by Cell Counting Kit-8, Transwell, and flow cytometry. The key factors of apoptosis and phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K)/protein kinase B (AKT)/glycogen synthase kinase 3β (GSK3β) and nuclear factor κB (NF-κB) signal pathways were determined by Western blot analysis.

RESULTS

UCA1 was upregulated in SUN-216 and SGC-7901 cells than in the other three cell lines of HEK293, CCL-153, and HUVEC. Knockdown of UCA1 significantly suppressed cell viability, migration, and invasion, and promoted apoptosis by regulating B-cell lymphoma 2, Bax, and cleaved-caspase-3/9 expressions. However, miR-182 overexpression markedly reversed the regulatory effect of UCA1 knockdown on SUN-216 and SGC-7901 cells. TIMP2 was a direct target gene of miR-182, and TIMP2 overexpression exhibited the same effect of UCA1 knockdown on cell viability, migration, invasion, and apoptosis. Besides, miR-182 activated PI3K/AKT/GSK3β and NF-κB signal pathways by regulation of TIMP2.

CONCLUSION

Knockdown of UCA1 exerts an anticancer effect on GC cells by regulating miR-182.

Clinical implication of UCA1 in non-small cell lung cancer and its effect on caspase-3/7 activation and apoptosis induction in vitro

Since urothelial cancer associated 1 (UCA1) was discovered in human bladder cancer, it has been reported to be dysregulated expressed in various kinds of solid tumors. But the clinical role and the function of UCA1 in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) remains incompletely understood. In this study, we mined the data of UCA1 expression in NSCLC from Oncomine, Gene expression profiling interactive analysis (GEPIA) and cBioPortal to analyze the contribution of UCA1 in the cancer initiation and progression of NSCLC. We also performed a series of in vitro experiments by using NSCLC cells to confirm the biological function of UCA1 in NSCLC, especially its effect on caspase-3/7 activity and apoptosis through RNA interference experiment. From Oncomine, the UCA1 levels were both up-regulated in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) and lung squamous carcinoma (LUSC), as compared to non-cancerous controls. Higher levels of UCA1 pointed to a poorer overall survival in NSCLC, with the HR being 1.3. Only two genetic alterations, including amplification and deep deletion, were observed for UCA1 as provided by cBioPortal. Both MTS and Cell Titer-blue assays showed an accordant inhibitory effect of UCA1 siRNAs on the cell growth. In conclusion, lncRNA UCA1 might play a substantial role in the occurrence and development of NSCLC, especially in LUAD patients, which is partly due to its effect on caspase-3/7 activity suppression.

UCA1 promotes cell proliferation and invasion of gastric cancer by targeting CREB1 sponging to miR-590-3p

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have emerged as regulators in a variety of biological processes, including carcinogenesis in human cancer. UCA1 has been reported to be upregulated in gastric cancer (GC); however, the underlying functional roles of UCA1 in GC have not been established. In the current study, we showed that UCA1 is significantly higher in GC tissues and cells compared with adjacent normal tissues and a gastric epithelium cell line, respectively. Higher UCA1 expression was associated with lymph node metastasis, TNM stage, and poor overall survival (OS) in GC patients. In vitro functional studies confirmed that UCA1 promotes cell proliferation, colony formation ability, and cell invasion in GC cells. We demonstrated that knockdown of UCA1 inhibits tumor growth in vivo. The double luciferase reporter, RNA‐binding protein immunoprecipitation assay, and RNA pull down assay demonstrated that miR‐590‐3p serves as a target for UCA1. UCA1 promoted cell proliferation and invasion by negatively regulating miR‐590‐3p expression. Moreover, we demonstrated that CREB1 is a downstream target of miR‐590‐3p and UCA1 activates CREB1 expression by sponging to miR‐590‐3p. Thus, these results showed that UCA1 functions as an oncogene in GC and may be a target for treatment of GC.

Prognostic role of the long non-coding RNA, SPRY4 Intronic Transcript 1, in patients with cancer: a meta-analysis

Recent studies have emphasized the important role of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) in cancer development. The present study performed a meta-analysis to investigate whether lncRNA, SPRY4 Intronic Transcript 1(SPRY4-IT1) can be served as a potential biomarker for prognosis in human cancers. The eligible studies were collected by searching multiple online databases (Pubmed, EMBASE, CNKI, Web of Science and Google Scholar) and meta-analysis was performed to explore the association between the expression levels of SPRY4-IT1 and overall survival (OS), disease-free survival (DFS) and clinicopathological parameters. A total of 1329 patients from 13 studies were included for meta-analysis. The meta-analysis results showed that high expression level of SPRY4-IT1 was significantly associated with shorter OS in cancer patients (HR = 3.20, 95% CI: 2.59-3.90, P<0.001) except in the patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Increased SPRY4-IT1 expression level was correlated with shorter DFS in patients with gastric cancer and ovarian cancer. SPRY4-IT1 expression level was not correlated with the clinicopathological parameters including age (P = 0.37), gender (P = 0.87), tumor size (P = 0.47) and invasion depth (P = 0.52), and increased SPRY4-IT1 expression level was significantly associated with distant metastasis (odds ratio (OR) = 1.96, 95% CI: 1.24-3.08, P = 0.004), lymph node metastasis (OR = 3.96, 95% CI: 1.48-5.54, P<0.001), advanced tumor/node/metastasis stage (OR = 3.72, 95% CI = 2.91-4.76, P<0.001) and poor tumor differentiation (OR = 1.86, 95% CI = 1.35-2.58, P<0.001) in cancer patients except in patients with NSCLC. In summary, the meta-analysis results suggested that increased expression level of SPRY4-IT1 was positively associated with unfavorable prognosis and advanced features of cancers in cancer patients but not in patients with NSCLC.

Long non-coding RNA XIST as a potential prognostic biomarker in human cancers: a meta-analysis

Growing studies have confirmed that long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) involve in the occurrence and development of various cancers. XIST, as a lncRNA, was dysregulated in different cancers. This meta-analysis was performed to evaluate the prognostic potential of XIST in malignant tumors. Eight databases of PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, Cochrane library, CNKI, VIP, SinoMed and Wang Fang were comprehensively searched from their initiation date to August 15, 2017. A total of nine studies with 853 cancer patients met the including criteria were finally included in this meta-analysis after independently screening the literatures by two researchers. Any discrepancies were resolved by a consensus. Hazard ratios (HRs) with corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for the primary endpoints were extracted and pooled for meta-analysis. Our results showed that expression level of XIST was markedly associated with overall survival (function as oncogene, HR = 0.53, 95% CI: 0.42-0.68, p < 0.00001; function as tumor suppressor, HR = 2.25, 95% CI: 1.15-4.37, p = 0.02), disease free survival (DFS)(HR = 0.45; 95% CI: 0.31-0.67, p < 0.0001), tumor type (digestive system carcinoma, HR = 0.50; 95% CI: 0.37-0.69, p < 0.00001; non-digestive system carcinoma, HR = 0.58; 95% CI: 0.39-0.87, p = 0.008), lymph node metastasis (OR = 0.32, 95% CI: 0.20-0.52, p < 0.00001), distant metastasis (OR = 0.36, 95% CI: 0.22-0.60, p < 0.0001) and tumor stage (OR = 0.43, 95% CI: 0.31-0.60, p < 0.00001). In conclusion, the pooled results in our current work suggest that XIST is an important prognostic biomarker in cancer patients.

mRNA, microRNA and lncRNA as novel bladder tumor markers

Early detection of bladder cancer (BC) is essential for improvement of the patient's prognosis and general survival rates. Current diagnostic methods are still limited, so new specific and cost-effective biomarkers are emerging as the noninvasive tools in treatment decisions in recurrent BC. Gene expression and epigenetic profile can be analysed using quantitative real-time-PCR (qRT-PCR) method in urine, blood and tissue. This review provides an update of recent findings on BC molecular profile as novel markers in diagnosis and prognosis of bladder tumors. We describe mRNA-, microRNA- and lncRNA-based biomarkers involved in the BC detection, diagnosis, prediction of recurrence and monitoring after treatment.

Prognostic Role of Long Noncoding RNA BANCR in Solid Tumors: A Meta-Analysis

Accumulating studies have reported that long noncoding RNA BRAF-activated nonprotein coding RNA plays vital role in various cancers. However, the prognostic values of BRAF-activated nonprotein coding RNA in solid tumors remain controversial. Thus, we assessed the prognostic values of BRAF-activated nonprotein coding RNA by this meta-analysis. We comprehensively searched PubMed, Web of Science, Medline, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), and the Cochrane Library at November 2016. After carefully screening, we ultimately included 14 studies in this meta-analysis. This meta-analysis brought all relevant articles into determining the association of BRAF-activated nonprotein coding RNA expression with overall survival and clinicopathologic features. The results showed that high BRAF-activated nonprotein coding RNA expression significantly shorten the overall survival of solid tumors (pooled hazard ratios 1.66, 95% confidence interval: 1.19-2.32). Moreover, high BRAF-activated nonprotein coding RNA expression was also strongly associated with advanced tumor stage (odds ratios = 2.57, 95% confidence interval: 1.14-5.79), differentiation grade (odds ratio = 1.71, 95% confidence interval: 1.26-2.31), lymph node metastasis (odds ratio = 2.67, 95% confidence interval: 1.93-3.70, P < .001), and distant metastasis (odds ratio = 2.98, 95% confidence interval: 1.76-5.07, P = .02). In conclusion, this meta-analysis demonstrated that high BRAF-activated nonprotein coding RNA expression may be a potential novel biomarker for indicating a poor prognosis and progression in human solid tumors.

Long non-coding RNAs: a rising biotarget in colorectal cancer

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a common gastrointestinal cancer, with a high incidence and high mortality. Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are involved in the development, invasion and metastasis, early diagnosis, prognosis, the chemoresistance and radioresistance of CRC through interference with mRNA activity, directly combining with proteins to regulate their activity or alter their localization, influencing downstream gene expression by inhibiting RNA polymerase and regulating gene expression as competing endogenous RNAs. Recent progress in next generation sequencing and transcriptome analysis has revealed that tissue and cancer-type specific lncRNAs could be useful prognostic markers. Here, the CRC-associated lncRNAs from recent studies until October 2016 are reviewed and multiple studies that have confirmed CRC-associated lncRNAs are summarized. This review may be helpful in understanding the overall relationships between the lncRNAs involved in CRC.

LncRNA UCA1 promotes the invasion and EMT of bladder cancer cells by regulating the miR-143/HMGB1 pathway

The long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) urothelial carcinoma associated 1 (UCA1) is an oncogenic lncRNA in bladder cancer, and its upregulation is associated with enhanced cell invasion. However, the underlying mechanism remains to be elucidated. The present study demonstrated that UCA1 was positively associated with cell invasion ability and promoted epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) of bladder cancer cells by inducing high mobility group box 1 (HMGB1). Furthermore, bioinformatics and luciferase reporter assays demonstrated binding sites of the tumor suppressive miR-143 within UCA1 and the 3'untranslated region of HMGB1. UCA1 negatively regulated miR-143 expression in a dose-dependent manner in bladder cancer cells. In addition, UCA1 and HMGB1 were upregulated and miR-143 was downregulated in bladder cancer specimens. Overall, the data suggested that UCA1 may promote the invasion and EMT of bladder cancer cells by regulating the miR-143/HMGB1 pathway, which exhibits an important regulatory role in the pathology of bladder cancer.

LncRNA-UCA1 enhances MMP-13 expression by inhibiting miR-204-5p in human chondrocytes

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a common degenerative disease characterized by degeneration of articular cartilage. Increasing studies showed that long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) play important roles in the cartilage damage. However, little is known about the role of UCA1 in the osteoarthritis. The expression level of UCA1 was upregulated in the OA cartilage. Overexpression of UCA1 suppressed the miR-204-5p expression in the chondrocytes. The expression of miR-204-5p was downregulated in the OA cartilage. Moreover, the expression of miR-204-5p was negatively correlated with the UCA1 expression in the OA cartilage. Elevated expression of UCA1 promoted the chondrocytes cell proliferation and overexpression of miR-204-5p suppressed chondrocytes cell proliferation. In addition, overexpression of UCA1 decreased the expression of the type II collagen and type IV collagen expression in the chondrocytes. Elevated expression of miR-204-5p promoted the type II collagen and type IV collagen expression in the chondrocytes. We idetified MMP-13 was a direct target gene of miR-204-5p in the chondrocytes. Overexpression of UCA1 enhanced the MMP-13 expression in the chondrocytes. Elevated expression of UCA1 regulated the chondrocytes cell proliferation and collagen expression through inhibiting the miR-204-5p expression.These results suggested that UCA1 played as an important regulator of survival and matrix synthesis of chondrocytes partly through suppressing the miR-204-5p expression.

Plasma Long Noncoding RNA Urothelial Carcinoma Associated 1 Predicts Poor Prognosis in Chronic Heart Failure Patients

Background

Chronic heart failure (CHF) is a leading cause of death worldwide. A long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) named urothelial carcinoma associated 1 (UCA1) is important in multiple diseases. However, the role of UCA1 in CHF is still unknown. Our study investigated whether UCA1 could be applied as an ideal marker to diagnose and evaluate prognosis in CHF.

Material/Methods

Total plasma RNA was extracted from 67 CHF patients and 67 controls. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction was used to determine the plasma level of UCA1. Correlations between UCA1 and clinical parameters were analyzed by Pearson correlation. Receiver operating characteristic curves (ROC) were obtained to analyze the predictive power of UCA1 and BNP for CHF. Kaplan-Meier survival curves were used to evaluate prognosis of CHF within 1 year.

Results

There was no significant difference in elementary data between CHF and controls. Plasma UCA1 was much higher in CHF patients compared with controls. Plasma UCA1 was positively and negatively correlated with brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) and left ventricle ejection fraction (LVEF), respectively. Plasma UCA1 diagnosed CHF with a diagnostic power of 0.89 and a sensitivity and specificity of 100% [95% CI (0.9464–1)] and 76.12% [95%CI (0.6414–0.8569)] (P<0.05), respectively. CHF patients with higher plasma UCA1 had a lower survival rate than those with a lower level, and survival rate predicted by UCA1 had a similar tendency with BNP. However, there was no significant difference between these 2 markers in predicting the prognosis of CHF (P>0.05).

Conclusions

Plasma UCA1 might be an excellent indicator to diagnose CHF and it might predict poor outcomes of CHF.

LncRNA CCAT1 modulates the sensitivity of paclitaxel in nasopharynx cancers cells via miR-181a/CPEB2 axis

Recent studies reported that long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) might play critical roles in regulating chemo-resistant of multiple types of cancer. This study aimed to investigate whether long non-coding RNA CCAT1 was involved in Paclitaxel resistance in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). qRT-PCR was used for testing the expression of CCAT1, miR-181a and CPEB2 in tumor tissues and NPC cancers. NPC cells were transfected with siRNAs to suppress the mRNA level of CCAT1 in NPC cells. MTT assays and flow cytometry analysis were used to assess the sensitivity of paclitaxel in NPC cells. Luciferase reporter assays were used to examine the interaction of CCAT1 or CPEB2 to miR-181a. Our findings revealed that the upregulated CCAT1 results in significantly enhancing paclitaxel resistance in nasopharyngeal cancer cells. Bioinformatics analysis and luciferase reporter assay indicated that the upregulated CCAT1 sponges miR-181a in NPC cells. Furthermore, RNA immuno-precipitation assays showed that miR-181a could directly bind to CCAT1 mRNA in NPC cells. We restored miR-181a in NPC cells, and found restoration of miR-181a re-sensitized the NPC cells to paclitaxel in vitro. In addition, our results also showed that miR-181a was a modulator of paclitaxel sensitivity due to its regulative effect on cell apoptosis via targeting CPEB2 in NPC cells. Taken together, lncRNA CCAT1 regulates the sensitivity of paclitaxel in NPC cells via miR-181a/CPEB2 axis.

Seven LncRNA-mRNA based risk score predicts the survival of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma

Dysregulation of mRNAs and long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) is one of the most important features of carcinogenesis and cancer development. However, studies integrating the expression of mRNAs and lncRNAs to predict the survival of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSC) are still limited, hitherto. In current work, we identified survival related mRNAs and lncRNAs in three datasets (TCGA dataset, E-TABM-302, GSE41613). By random forest, seven gene signatures (six mRNAs and lncRNA) were further selected to develop the risk score model. The risk score was significantly associated with survival in both training and testing datasets (E-TABM-302, GSE41613, and E-MTAB-1324). Furthermore, correlation analyses showed that the risk score is independent from clinicopathological features. According to Cox multivariable hazard model and nomogram, the risk score contributes the most to survival than the other clinical information, including gender, age, histologic grade, and alcohol taking. The Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) indicates that the risk score is associated with cancer related pathways. In summary, the lncRNA-mRNA based risk score model we developed successfully predicts the survival of 755 HNSC samples in five datasets and two platforms. It is independent from clinical information and performs better than clinical information for prognosis.

Upregulation of the long noncoding RNA UCA1 affects the proliferation, invasion, and survival of hypopharyngeal carcinoma

Background

Several long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are involved in oncogenesis.

Methods and Results

Our microarray analysis showed that numerous lncRNAs are dysregulated in hypopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (HSCC) tumor tissues as compared with normal tissues. Among those lncRNAs, urothelial carcinoma-associated 1 (UCA1) has been found to have an oncogenic role in HSCC. We confirmed the upregulation of UCA1 in HSCC by assessing its expression levels in a cohort of 53 patient tumors and paired non-tumor samples. In addition, we found that high UCA1 expression was significantly associated with advanced T category, late clinical stage, greater lymphatic invasion, and worse prognosis. Furthermore, in vitro experiments demonstrated that UCA1 functioned as an oncogene by promoting the proliferation and invasion and preventing the apoptosis of HSCC cells.

Conclusions

Taken together, our findings for the first time identify the role of UCA1 as a tumor promoter and a pro-metastatic factor in HSCC, demonstrating that UCA1 is a potential prognostic biomarker and therapeutic target in HSCC.

Long noncoding RNA papillary thyroid carcinoma susceptibility candidate 3 (PTCSC3) inhibits proliferation and invasion of glioma cells by suppressing the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway

BACKGROUND

The dysregulation of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) has been identified in a variety of cancers. An increasing number of studies have found the critical role of lncRNAs in the regulation of cellular processes, such as proliferation, invasion and differentiation. Long noncoding RNA papillary thyroid carcinoma susceptibility candidate 3 (PTCSC3) is a novel lncRNA that was primarily detected in papillary thyroid carcinoma. However, the biological function and molecular mechanism of lncRNA PTCSC3 in glioma are still unknown.

METHODS

The expression level of lncRNA PTCSC3 in human microglia and glioma cell lines was examined using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). The influence of lncRNA PTCSC3 on cell proliferation were studied using the cell counting kit-8, and cell cycle and apoptosis were analyzed by flow cytometry assays. The migration and invasion abilities were investigated by transwell and wound healing assays. The target genes of lncRNA PTCSC3 were explored by qRT-PCR, immunofluorescence and western blot.

RESULTS

LncRNA PTCSC3 was significantly downregulated in glioma cell lines. The overexpression of lncRNA PTCSC3 suppressed proliferation and induced apoptosis in U87 and U251 cells. Additionally, the overexpression of lncRNA PTCSC3 inhibited the migration and invasion of U87 and U251 cells. Moreover, lncRNA PTCSC3 inhibited the epithelial-mesenchymal transition of U87 cells. The study also demonstrated that LRP6, as a receptor of the Wnt/β-catenin pathway, was a target of lncRNA PTCSC3. By evaluating the expression levels of Axin1, active β-catenin, c-myc, and cyclin D1, the study indicated that lncRNA PTCSC3 inhibited the activation of the Wnt/β-cateninpathway through targeting LRP6.

CONCLUSIONS

LncRNA PTCSC3 inhibits the proliferation and migration of glioma cells and suppresses Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway by targeting LRP6. LncRNA PTCSC3 is a potential therapeutic target for treatment of glioma.

Non-Coding RNAs in Lung Cancer: Contribution of Bioinformatics Analysis to the Development of Non-Invasive Diagnostic Tools

Lung cancer is currently the leading cause of cancer related mortality due to late diagnosis and limited treatment intervention. Non-coding RNAs are not translated into proteins and have emerged as fundamental regulators of gene expression. Recent studies reported that microRNAs and long non-coding RNAs are involved in lung cancer development and progression. Moreover, they appear as new promising non-invasive biomarkers for early lung cancer diagnosis. Here, we highlight their potential as biomarker in lung cancer and present how bioinformatics can contribute to the development of non-invasive diagnostic tools. For this, we discuss several bioinformatics algorithms and software tools for a comprehensive understanding and functional characterization of microRNAs and long non-coding RNAs.