Non-coding RNAs are correlated to TGF-β receptor type 2 in patients with colorectal cancer.

Abstract

Multiple molecular expression alterations, in particular, in noncoding RNAs, play fundamental roles in the regulations of cellular processes and may relate to the occurrence and progression of CRC. In this study, we investigated the associations between TGFBR2, miR20a-5p and lncRNA LAMTOR5-AS1 in CRC patients. The colorectal cancer and adjacent normal tissue samples (n=34) were prepared from CRC patients. The associations between TGFBR2, miR20a-5p and lncRNA LAMTOR5-AS1 were predicted using bioinformatics tools. The expression levels of TGFBR2, miR20a-5p and lncRNA LAMTOR5-AS1 were measured using Quantitative Real-Time PCR technique. The TGFBR2 protein values were measured by western blotting method. The clinical importance of lncRNA LAMTOR5-AS1 was assessed using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. The up-regulated levels of TGFBR2 (P = 0.02), TGFBR2 protein (P = 0.008) and lncRNA LAMTOR5-AS1 (P = 0.02) were significantly observed in CRC tissues as compared with the adjacent normal tissues. The miR20a-5p expression level (P = 0.009) was downregulated in CRC tissues. In addition, the miR20a-5p expression level was inversely correlated to the TGFBR2 gene (R² = 0.88, P <0.0001), protein (R² = 0.95, P <0.0001) and lncRNA LAMTOR5-AS1 gene (R² = 0.93, P <0.0001) expression levels. Based on the area under curve (AUC), the increase of lncRNA LAMTOR5-AS1 expression level with a sensitivity of 64.52 % and specificity of 65.52% was considered in CRC patients. We suggested that the miR20a-5p is inversely related to lncRNA LAMTOR5-AS so that it may be involved in the regulation of TGFBR2 expression level in CRC patients.