Anesthetic-specific lncRNA and mRNA profile changes in blood during colorectal cancer resection: A prospective, matched-case pilot study

Abstract

Prometastatic and antitumor effects of different anesthetics have been previously analyzed in several studies with conflicting results. Thus, the underlying perioperative molecular mechanisms mediated by anesthetics potentially affecting tumor phenotype and metastasis remain unclear. It was hypothesized that anesthetic-specific long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) expression changes are induced in the blood circulation and play a crucial role in tumor outcome. In the present study, high-throughput sequencing and quantitative PCR were performed in order to identify lncRNA and mRNA expression changes affected by two therapeutic regimes, total intravenous anesthesia (TIVA) and volatile anesthetic gas (VAG) in patients undergoing colorectal cancer (CRC) resection. Total blood RNA was isolated prior to and following resection and characterized using RNA sequencing. mRNA-lncRNA interactions and their roles in cancer-related signaling of differentially expressed lncRNAs were identified using bioinformatics analyses. The comparison of these two