High Expression of IncRNA-PCNA-AS1 in Human Gastric Cancer and its Clinical Significances.

BACKGROUND: Long noncoding RNAs (IncRNAs) have been demonstrated to be associated with human cancer. However, the clinical value of most lncRNAs to serve as the biomarkers for gastric cancer remains largely unknown. In this study, we examined the relationship between the expression levels of IncRNA, PCNA antisense RNA 1 (PCNA-AS1), and clinicopathological characteristics of gastric cancer. METHODS: A total of 90 tissue samples from patients with gastric cancer were collected, and the IncRNA PCNA-AS1 levels in cancer and paired non-cancer tissues was detected by real-time quantitative RT-PCR (qRT-PCR). The relationship between PCNA-AS1 levels and the clinicopathological characteristics were then evaluated. RESULTS: PCNA-AS1 expression levels were increased in 68 of 90 gastric cancer tissues (75.56%) and were associated with invasion (p = 0.038), but not associated with other clinicopathological characteristics. The expression levels of PCNA-AS1 were also related with immunohistochemical biomarkers of BRCA1 (p = 0.043) and RRM1 (p = 0.023). CONCLUSIONS: These data indicated that IncRNA-PCNA-AS1 may participate in the gastric cancer carcinogenesis and development and may serve as a new biomarker for patients with gastric cancer.