Association between expression of HOTAIR and invasiveness of gliomas, and its predictive value.

BACKGROUND

Hox transcript antisense intergenic RNA (HOTAIR) is upregulated and associated with a poor prognosis in many cancer types. Besides, it is involved in the invasion and metastasis of non-small-cell lung cancer and nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

OBJECTIVES

The aim of this study was to investigate the association between the expression of HOTAIR and the grades of gliomas, and to explore its possible mechanism, as well as to evaluate the value of HOTAIR applied in predicting the grades of gliomas.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

A total of 123 patients undergoing glioma surgeries were enrolled. Patients with grade I and grade II-IV tumors were regarded as the control group (n = 36) and the case group (n = 87), respectively. The expression of HOTAIR, matrix metalloproteinase 7 (MMP-7), matrix metalloproteinase 9 (MMP-9), and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) was detected with quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) in glioma tissues and then compared between grade I and grades II-IV. The correlation between the relative expression of HOTAIR and that of MMP-7, MMP-9 and VEGF was analyzed. Multivariate analysis was performed to identify independent risk factors. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was employed to evaluate the predictive value.

RESULTS

The relative expression of HOTAIR, MMP-7, MMP-9, and VEGF was lower in glioma tissues of grade I than in the case of grades II-IV, and the relative expression of HOTAIR was positively correlated with the relative expression of MMP-7, MMP-9 and VEGF. Multivariate analysis showed that the relative expression of HOTAIR was independently associated with the grades of gliomas, but the relative expression of MMP-7, MMP-9 and VEGF was not. Besides, multivariate analysis showed that the expression level of HOTAIR >0.40 was an independent risk factor for grades II-IV after classifying the relative expression of HOTAIR, and ROC analysis showed that the expression level of HOTAIR >0.40 had a moderate value when applied in predicting grades II-IV.

CONCLUSIONS

Hox transcript antisense intergenic RNA might promote the invasion of gliomas through upregulating the expression of MMP-7, MMP-9 and VEGF, and the expression level of HOTAIR >0.40 had a moderate value when applied in predicting grades II-IV.