Investigation of serum lncRNA-uc003wbd and lncRNA-AF085935 expression profile in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma and HBV

Abstract

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) was among the most common solid tumors which rated third in cancer-related mortality worldwide. Hepatitis B viral (HBV) infection represents an important risk factor for HCC. Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) were a class of newfound non-coding RNAs widely depicted in the genome currently. Nevertheless, the potential roles of them in human cancers were not well comprehended. Through this study, we aimed at exploring the expression profile and the potential clinical value of two lncRNAs (lncRNA-uc003wbd and lncRNA-AF085935) in differentiating HCC from both HBV patients and the healthy specimens. Serum samples were extracted from 104 HBV patients, 137 HCC patients, and 138 healthy controls. The lncRNA levels of all the subjects were assayed by quantitative real-time reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). We differentiated the three groups by the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of each group. Statistical analyses were conducted by GraphPad software. Two-tailed P value less than 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant. The level of serum lncRNA-uc003wbd and lncRNA-AF085935 was significantly upregulated in HCC patients and HBV patients compared with that in normal controls. LncRNA-AF085935 showed a relatively higher accuracy for HCC screening (area under the curve (AUC) = 0.96, 95 % confidence interval (CI) = 0.93–0.99) than lncRNA-uc003wbd (AUC = 0.86, 95 % CI = 0.82–0.91) from healthy controls, as well as for HCC screening (AUC = 0.86, 95 % CI = 0.80–0.91) which is more accurate than lncRNA-uc003wbd (AUC = 0.70, 95 % CI = 0.63–0.76) from HBV patients. When differentiating HBV patients from the normal group, the descriptive value of lncRNA-AF085935 (AUC = 0.77, 95 % CI = 0.71–0.83) was almost as equal to lncRNA-uc003wbd (AUC = 0.76, 95 % CI = 0.70–0.82). In addition, higher expressions of lncRNAs were observed in HCC patients than in HBV patients. LncRNA-uc003wbd and lncRNA-AF085935 were observed with an aberrant serum level in HCC and HBV patients, which is showing that both lncRNA-uc003wbd and lncRNA-AF085935 are able to be potential biomarkers for HCC and HBV screening.