Expression and clinical significance of long non-coding RNA TP73-AS1 in breast cancer tissues

FENG Haigang; WANG Youquan; CAO Hong; LONG Lin; ZUO Jun

doi:10.3969/j.issn.1009-0460.2019.11.016

Abstract：Objective To investigate the expression of long non-coding RNA TP73 antisense RNA 1 ( TP73-AS1) in breast cancer tissues and its clinical significance. Methods Using the GEPIA online database (including TCGA and GTEX RNA sequencing expression data) and the breast cancer related data set downloaded from the gene expression omnibus ( GEO) database, we analyzed the TP73-AS1 level in breast cancer tissues and its relationship with prognosis. Kaplan-Meier plotter database was used to analyze the relationship between TP73-AS1 level and prognosis of breast cancer. Real-time quantitative PCR was used to detect the TP73-AS1 level in 87 pairs of cancer tissues and paracancerous tissues surgically removed from January 2016 to December 2017 in our hospital. The re-lationship between the TP73-AS1 level and the clinicopathological characteristics of breast cancer was further analyzed. Results The results of GEPIA online analysis showed that the TP73-AS1 level of breast cancer tissue (n＝1085) in TCGA database was lower than that of normal tissue (P＜0. 05). The TP73-AS1 levels of breast cancer tissues in GEO data sets GSE20685 ( n＝327), GSE20711 (n＝88) and GDS3853 (n＝14) were 6. 541±1. 084, 4. 439±0. 291 and 6. 926±0. 454, lower than 8. 555±2. 024 of normal breast tis-sues (P＜0. 05). The results of GEPIA online analysis showed that TP73-AS1 level was not related to overall survival (OS) and re-lapse-free survival (RFS), while Kaplan-Meier plotter online analysis showed that TP73-AS1 level was related to OS and RFS, but not to distant metastasis-free survival and progression-free survival. The median OS was 110. 4 months in high-expression group, longer than 69. 73 months in low-expression group (HR＝0. 71, 95%CI: 0. 52-0. 97). The median RFS was 48. 0 months in high-expression group, longer than 27. 96 months in low-expression group (HR＝0. 62, 95%CI: 0. 53-0. 73). The TP73-AS1 level was 0. 483±0. 301 in 87 cases of breast cancer tissues, lower than 1. 475±0. 704 in paracahcerous tissues (P＜0. 05). TP73-AS1 level was related with tumor size, lymph node metastasis, TNM stage, Ki-67 expression and Nottingham prognosis index (P＜0. 05), but not with age, meno-pause, histological grade, ER, PR and HER-2 expression (P＞0. 05). Conclusion The expression of TP73-AS1 is low in breast cancer and has a certain relationship with the occurrence, development and prognosis of breast cancer. It can be used to screen breast cancer and predict the prognosis.