Clinical Value of Differential lncRNA Expressions in Diagnosis of Giant Cell Tumor of Bone and Tumor Recurrence.

BACKGROUND

There is currently no clinical biomarker for the early diagnosis of giant cell tumor of bone. Long-chain non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have a wide range of important gene regulatory functions and play an important role in the occurrence and development of various malignant tumors. This study mainly screened the differential expression of lncRNAs in patients with giant cell tumor of bone by gene chip technology, verified the biological function. We tried to establish a reference basis for early diagnosis of tumor and prediction of tumor recurrence.

METHODS

From September 2018 to September 2019, we randomly selected 20 cases of primary giant cell tumor of bone and 20 cases of recurrent giant cell tumor of bone, and 20 cases of bone trauma tissue. First, the differential expression of incRNAs in the bone tissue of the patients was evaluated via utilizing gene chip technology. The gene chip was Human LncRNA Array v 3.0 (8 x 60 K) was completed by Shanghai Kangcheng Biotechnology Co., Ltd. The DAVID online analysis platform was used to analyze the differentially expressed genes by GO and KEGG pathways. The target lncRNAs were screened; real-time quantitative PCR (qRT-PCR) was used to verify the relative expression levels of target lncRNAs in bone tissue and serum of three groups of patients.

RESULTS

Using gene chip technology screening, fold-change (FC) value > 2.0 was used as standard. A total of 1,254 differentially expressed lncRNAs were detected of which 896 were up-regulated and 358 were down-regulated. Additionally, a total of 106 differentially expressed lncRNAs were detected with FC values > 10.0. Among these, 72 lncRNAs were upregulated and 34 lncRNAs were downregulated. We then selected two lncRNAs with up-regulation and down-regulation with the largest fold difference. qRT-PCR analytical results showcased that the expression of AK124776 in bone tissue and serum of patients in the recurrent group was significantly higher than that of the initial group and the normal group. Conversely, for RP11-160A10.2, the expression level in the recurrent group was significantly lower than that in the initial group, and the normal group was the highest; the difference was statistically significant (p < 0.05). Finally, we used the expression levels of AK124776 and RP11-160A10.2 in each group as the diagnostic indicators. According to the receiver operating curve (ROC), the accuracy of AK¬124776 and RP11-160A10.2 in the diagnosis of giant cell tumor of bone (area under the curve), the AUC was 0.865 and 0.877, respectively; the accuracy of predicting recurrence of giant cell tumor of bone was 0.832 and 0.841, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS

The early detection of differential expression of lncRNAs in the serum of patients with giant cell tumor of bone is important for the diagnosis of disease and prediction of recurrence. The establishment of stable expression of lncRNAs and simple and easy detection methods are of great value for guiding clinical application.