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.