Expression analysis of CDKN2C-related lncRNAs in breast cancer

Abstract

Cell cycle related genes are implicated in the pathogenesis of breast cancer. In the present study, we aimed at identification of the role of a cell cycle related gene and functionally associated long non-coding RNAs in breast cancer. Thus, we studied expression levels of CDKN2C gene and three related long non-coding RNAs, namely PANDAR, AATBC and PANTR1 in breast cancer samples compared with adjacent tissues. Expression of CDKN2C was significantly lower in breast tumor samples compared with control samples (expression ratio (95% CI) = 0.49 (0.3–0.8), P values = 0.0049). On the other hand, PANTR1 was up-regulated in cancerous samples compared with control samples (expression ratio (95% CI) = 4.25 (1.25–14.38), P values = 0.033). While CDKN2C could separate these sets of samples with AUC ± SD, sensitivity, specificity and P values of 0.75 ± 0.05, 0.68, 0.86 and 0.0002, respectively; PANTR1 could not distinguish between cancerous and non-cancerous samples (P value = 0.6). AUC ± SD, sensitivity and specificity values for PANTR1 were 0.53 ± 0.07, 0.97 and 0.36, respectively. There were significant differences in the correlation patterns of CDKN2C/PANDAR, CDKN2C/AATBC and CDKN2C/PANTR1 pairs between cancerous and non-cancerous tissues. In fact, expression of CDKN2C was correlated with all lncRNAs in cancerous samples, in spite of lack of correlation in non-cancerous tissues. The present study shows possible role of CDKN2C in the pathoetiology of breast cancer.