Multi-omic alterations of the SWI/SNF complex define a clinical subgroup in lung adenocarcinoma.

SWI/SNF complexes are major targets of mutations in cancer. Here, we combined multiple "-omics" methods to assess SWI/SNF composition and aberrations in LUAD. Mutations in lung SWI/SNF subunits were highly recurrent in our LUAD cohort (41.4%), and over 70% of the mutations were predicted to have functional impact. Furthermore, SWI/SNF expression in LUAD suffered an overall repression that could not be explained exclusively by genetic alterations. Finally, SWI/SNF mutations were associated with poorer overall survival in TCGA-LUAD. We propose SWI/SNF-mutant LUAD as a separate clinical subgroup with practical implications.

The value of lncRNA FENDRR and FOXF1 as a prognostic factor for survival of lung adenocarcinoma.

It is increasingly evident that non-coding RNAs play a significant role in tumour development. However, we still have a limited knowledge of the clinical significance of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) in lung cancer. The FENDRR is a long coding RNA (also named FOXF1-AS1) located in the vicinity of the protein-coding gene FOXF1 at 16q24.1 chromosomal region. The present study aimed to define the clinic pathological significance of the long-non-coding RNA FENDRR in lung adenocarcinomas. FENDRR expression measured by quantitative PCR was found significantly downregulated (p<0.001) in lung adenocarcinoma samples in comparison with their normal adjacent tissues (n=70). RNA in situ hybridization (RNA-FISH) corroborated independently the down-regulation of FENDRR. Interestingly, the expression of FENDRR correlated positively (p<0.001) with the expression of its protein-coding neighbor gene FOXF1. Additionally, FOXF1 expression was also found downregulated in adenocarcinomas compared to normal samples (p<0.001) and its expression was significantly correlated with overall survival alone (p=0.003) or in combination with FENDRR expression (p=0.01). In conclusion, our data support that FENDRR and FOXF1 expression is decreased in lung adenocarcinoma and should be considered as new potential diagnostic/prognosis biomarkers.