Plasma and tumor levels of Linc-pint are diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers for pancreatic cancer

Long intergenic non-protein coding RNA, p53 induced transcript (Linc-pint) is a long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) that regulates tumor cell viability and proliferation. Researchers from Harbin Medical University used qRT-PCR and RNA FISH analysis to evaluate Linc-pint levels in the plasma and tumor tissues of pancreatic cancer (PCa) patients. Their data demonstrate that Linc-pint expression is lower in plasma samples from PCa patients than from healthy individuals, and indicate that plasma Linc-pint levels are more sensitive than CA19-9 for detecting PCa. The data also show that Linc-pint levels are lower in PCa tumors than in adjacent tissues, carcinoma of the ampulla of Vater (CAV) and cholangiocarcinoma (CCA), and suggest that Linc-pint could be used for distinguishing the cause of malignant obstructive jaundice. Low plasma Linc-pint levels correlate with tumor recurrence, while low tumor Linc-pint levels correlate with poor prognosis for PCa patients after pancreatectomy.

The plasma Linc-pint expression in PCa patients

(A) Linc-pint levels in plasma from PDAC and other phenotypes PCa patients were significantly lower than in healthy volunteers (P < 0.0001, P = 0.0005). (B) Analysis of receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve to detect PCa patients. ROC analysis showed the AUC of plasma Linc-pint was 0.87, the AUC of CA19-9 was 0.78, and the AUC of Linc-pint combined with CA 19-9 was 0.92.

These results thus indicate that low plasma Linc-pint expression could serve as a minimally invasive biomarker for early PCa detection, and that low Linc-pint levels in PCa tumors could be used for predicting patient prognosis.

Li L, Zhang GQ, Chen H, Zhao ZJ, Chen HZ, Liu H, Wang G, Jia YH, Pan SH, Kong R, Wang YW, Sun B. (2016) Plasma and tumor levels of Linc-pint are diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers for pancreatic cancer. Oncotarget [Epub ahead of print]. [article]

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