Integrated Analysis Of Long Non-Coding RNA Interactions Reveals The Potential Role In Progression Of Human Papillary Thyroid Cancer

Background Recent scientific evidence has suggested that long non-coding RNAs(lnc RNAs)play an important part in tumorigenesis as an important member of competing endogenous RNAs(ce RNAs).Hundreds of RNA sequence data and relevant clinic information are freely accessible in The Cancer Genome Atlas(TCGA)datasets.However,the role of cancer-related lnc RNAs in papillary thyroid cancer(PTC)is not fully understood yet.Methods We identified 461 PTC samples from the TCGA database.Four groups were listed as follows: stage I-II with/without lymphatic metastasis and stage III-? with/without lymphatic metastasis.Then,all these samples collected in TCGA were divided into 3 groups to perform the differential analysis of lnc RNAs,mi RNAs and m RNAs.Thus,all collected samples were grouped as: 1)PTC tumor samples and normal thyroid samples;2)PTC samples with lymphatic metastasis and PTC samples without lymphatic metastasis;3)PTC samples with stage I-II and PTC samples with stage III-?.Next,the KEGG and GO analysis were performed to investigate the potential biological functions and molecular pathways of differentially expressed genes.The intersected lnc RNAs,mi RNAs and m RNAs were then chosen to construct the ce RNA network which shows the genetic regulation related to PTC.In addition,quantificational real-time polymerase chain reaction(q RT-PCR)validation of 8 randomly selected lnc RNAs in 28 paired frozen tissues was performed to examine the credibility of the bioinformatics analysis results.Results In this study,we identified 461 RNA sequencing data from TCGA.Subsequently,45 lnc RNAs,21 mi RNAs and 78 m RNAs were chosen to construct a ce RNA network of PTC.Then,we analyzed the correlation between these 45 PTC-specific lnc RNAs and clinic features and patient outcome.Thirty-seven of these lnc RNAs were found to be closely related to age,race,gender,lymph node metastasis,TNM staging system,and patient outcome.Additionally,three of them were linked to PTC patient overall survival(OS).Eventually,we selected 8 lnc RNAs randomly and performed q RT-PCR in 28 newly diagnosed PTC patients to verify the reliability of the above results.The results of q RT-PCR are totally in agreement with the bioinformatics analysis.Additionally,it was found that HAND2-AS1 was negatively related to tumor size(P <0.05).The results were consistent with the bioinformatics analysis in TCGA.Conclusion Taken together,we identified the differentially expressed lnc RNAs and constructed a PTC ce RNA network.The study provides a new perspective and supplement for our understanding of lnc RNAs in PTC development and reveals potential diagnostic and prognostic markers in PTC.