Diagnostic performance of urinary lncRNA-TUG1 for detecting pediatric hepatoblastoma

Abstract

Objective To explore whether lncRNA-TUG2 is a novel and non-invasive biomarker for diagnosing pediatric hepatoblastoma. Methods Thirty tumor samples and 30 adjacent tumor samples were collected from children with early resectable pediatric hepatoblastoma from 2012-2017. And urinary samples from 30 healthy control children, 30 children with early resectable pediatric hepatoblastoma and 30 children with terminal pediatric hepatoblastoma were also harvested. Healthy control children were identified by general health examinations. Children with early resectable pediatric hepatoblastoma were diagnosed by pathology after tumor resection. And children with terminal resectable pediatric hepatoblastoma were diagnosed by at least two imaging modalities. Subsequently the levels of TUG1 in tissue and urine samples were measured by quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). Additionally, the correlationship between the levels of tumor tissues and urine was analyzed by statistical analysis. Finally the diagnostic performance of TUG1 was calculated by the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Results TUG1 was significantly higher in tumor tissue and urine samples of children with pediatric hepatoblastoma(P<0.001). Compared with adjacent tumor tissues, TUG1 was 40.9 folds higher than tumor tissue. Compared with healthy control children, urinary TUG1 was 25.2 and 26.2 times higher than that in children with early and terminal hepatoblastoma respectively. Its levels were significantly positively correlated in both samples (P<0.001). The sensitivity and specificity of urinary TUG1 for detecting pediatric hepatoblastoma were 81.7% and 100% respectively. Conclusions Urinary TUG1 is secreted by hepatoblastoma and it may serve as a novel and non-invasive biomarker for pediatric hepatoblastoma. Key words: Hepatoblastoma; Long non-coding RNA; Diagnosis