Integrated Analysis Reveals That Long Non-Coding RNA TUBA4B Can Be Used as a Prognostic Biomarker in Various Cancers.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Recent studies have reported the importance of tubulin alpha 4b (TUBA4B), a long non-coding RNA, in the development of several cancers; however, studies on its clinical significance are rare. In the present meta-analysis, we investigated whether TUBA4B can be used as a prognostic biomarker in human cancers.

METHODS

A comprehensive search was performed in PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and the Gene Expression Omnibus databases. Hazard ratios from individual studies were calculated and pooled using a random-effects or fix-effects model. The pooled hazard ratio (HR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) was used to evaluate the value of TUBA4B. The expression of TUBA4B was evaluated in lung cancer tissue arrays by fluorescence in situ hybridization assay. Additionally, a sensitivity analysis and Begg's test were conducted.

RESULTS

We found that TUBA4B was significantly correlated with overall survival (OS) (HR = 1.33, 95% CI: 1.16-1.52, P=0.000), disease-free survival (DFS; HR = 1.25, 95% CI: 1.06-1.48, P=0.007), and recurrence-free survival (RFS; HR = 1.42, 95% CI: 1.26-1.60, P=0.000). In addition, TUBA4B was a risk factor for lung cancer (HR = 1.24, 95% CI: 1.03-1.49, P=0.021), colon cancer (HR = 1.67, 95% CI: 1.02-2.74, P=0.042), breast cancer (HR = 1.52, 95% CI: 1.10-2.12, P=0.012), and ovarian cancer (HR = 1.67, 95% CI: 1.18-2.36, P=0.004). Moreover, LncRNA-TUBA4B was significantly lower expression in tumor tissues than normal lung tissues (P< 0.001). The expression of lncRNA-TUBA4B was decreased with the progression of lung cancer stage. A subgroup meta-analysis based on data resource, sample size, region, patient numbers, and tumor type was further performed. Our studies revealed that tumor tissues with low levels of TUBA4B was significantly associated with short OS, DFS, and RFS in cancer patients.

CONCLUSION

The present findings suggest that TUBA4B can be a novel biomarker for the prognosis of various cancers.