Evaluation of the expression level of some coding and non-coding genes in oral squamous cell carcinoma

Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is the most common cancers arising from the head and neck region. There is growing evidence that lncRNAs play an important role in OSCC progression. The study aims to investigate correlations between the expression levels of LncRNAs of PARROT, MYCNUT, DANCR, and KTN1-AS1 with clinicopathological characteristics and finding suitable biomarkers for OSCC.

Total lncRNAs related to cancers and HNSC trascriptomics data were downloaded from lncRNADisease v2.0 database and xenabrowser, respectively. Then, ACO was perfomed on shared of LncRNAs between two databases. Finally, some lncRNAs were proposed as potential biomarkers. Thirty biopsies samples from patients with the OSCC and 30 healthy subjects were collected by the surgery. Questionnaires including clinical and demographic data were filled for all cases. Using Real-time PCR, the expression levels of PARROT, MYCNUT, DANCR, and KTN1-AS1 lncRNAs were quantified.

According to the results,17 novel gene symbol was identified.All the candidate lncRNAs the expression levels of PARROT, MYCNUT, DANCR, and KTN1-AS1 were remarkably upregulated in OSCC tumors in comparison with control group (RQ: 10.00 (P < 0.0001), RQ: 2.920 (P < 0.0001), RQ: 1.623 (P = 0.002), and 4.467 (P < 0.0001), respectively). Also, we found significant associations between tumor lncRNAs expression of PARRPT and DANCER and tumor metastasis (P = 0.009, and P = 0.005, respectively). Additionally, lncRNA KTN1-AS1 expression level was significantly higher in the patients with tumor size more than 3 cm, in comparison with tumor less than 3 cm (P = 0.005). According ROC analysis, all these candidate lncRNAs can be a significant predictor for OSCC (AUC of PARROT lncRNA = 69.72%, AUC of MYCNUT = 98.22%, AUC of DANCR = 74.83%, and AUC of KTN1-AS1 = 99.22%).

we found that overexpression levels of PARROT, MYCNUT, DANCR, and KTN1-AS1 lncRNAs were correlated with poor clinicopathological characteristics in patients with OSCC. Also, PARROT, MYCNUT, DANCR, and KTN1-AS1 are novel biomarker for the detection of OSCC.