Expression and prognostic significance of ANRIL in hepatocellular carcinoma

Abstract

Objective To investigate the expression level of antisense non-coding RNA in the INK4 locus (ANRIL) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tissues and to evaluate its relation to clinicopathological features and prognosis of HCC. Methods Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) method was used to detect the expression of ANRIL in HCC tissues and adiacent tissues (n=90) and to analyze its relationship with clinicopathological data. Kaplan-Meier curves and multivariate Cox proportional models were used to study the impact on clinical outcome. Small interfering RNA (siRNA) was used to silence ANRIL and to explore the effects of reduced ANRIL expression on cell growth and metastasis. Results ANRIL expression in HCC tissues was significantly higher than in the adjacent non-tumor tissues (t=13.083, P<0.05). The expression of ANRIL was remarkably associated with the histologic grade (χ2=40.724, P<0.05) and TNM stage (χ2=43.245, P<0.05) . The mean survival time of the patients with high ANRIL was 18.2 months (95%CI: 14.9-21.5 months), shorter than 39.4 months (95%CI: 35.5-43.4 months) in low expression (χ2=47.590, P<0.05). Multivariate analysis suggested that high ANRIL expression was an independent predictor of poor prognosis (HR=2.143, 95%CI: 1.083-4.243, P<0.05). Decreased expression of ANRIL could suppress the cell proliferation, migration and invasion of HCC cells. Conclusion Positive ANRIL expression is negatively correlated with the prognosis of HCC patients. Key words: Carcinoma, hepatocellular; Prognosis; Antisense non-coding RNA in the INK4 locus