Oncol Res Treat. 2017;40(6):370-374. doi: 10.1159/000464465. Epub 2017 May 10.
NORAD (non-coding RNA-activated by DNA damage) is a conserved, abundant, and broadly expressed long non-coding RNA, which functions to preserve genome stability. However, its prognostic significance in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) remains unclear.
The expression of NORAD was detected by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction in pairs of tumorous and adjacent normal tissues derived from 106 ESCC patients. We analyzed the potential relationship between NORAD expression levels in tumor tissues and clinicopathological features of ESCC patients and clinical outcome.
The relative expression levels of NORAD were significantly upregulated in tumor tissues (p < 0.001) compared to adjacent normal tissues. In addition, high expression of NORAD was correlated with larger tumor size (p = 0.021) and T stage (p = 0.045). Kaplan-Meier analysis indicated that patients with high NORAD expression had poor overall and disease-free survival (p < 0.001). Moreover, multivariate analysis showed that increased expression of NORAD was an independent predictor of overall survival (p = 0.001).
Our data indicate that increased NORAD expression might serve as a novel molecular predictor of poor prognosis in ESCC patients and maybe a potential target for diagnosis and gene therapy.
NORAD（DNA 损伤激活的非编码 RNA）是一种保守、丰富且广泛表达的长非编码 RNA，其功能是维持基因组稳定性。然而，其在食管鳞状细胞癌（ESCC）中的预后意义尚不清楚。
通过定量实时聚合酶链反应检测 106 例 ESCC 患者肿瘤组织及其配对的正常组织中 NORAD 的表达。我们分析了肿瘤组织中 NORAD 表达水平与 ESCC 患者临床病理特征和临床结局的潜在关系。
与相邻正常组织相比，肿瘤组织中 NORAD 的相对表达水平显著上调（p<0.001）。此外，NORAD 的高表达与更大的肿瘤大小（p=0.021）和 T 分期（p=0.045）相关。Kaplan-Meier 分析表明，NORAD 高表达的患者总生存和无病生存较差（p<0.001）。此外，多因素分析表明，NORAD 表达增加是总生存的独立预后因素（p=0.001）。
我们的数据表明，NORAD 表达的增加可能是 ESCC 患者预后不良的新分子标志物，并且可能是诊断和基因治疗的潜在靶点。
