The expression patterns of NBAT1 and CASC15 are associated with colorectal cancer

Abstract

LncRNAs are non-coding RNAs with more than 200 nucleotides which are critical regulators of gene expression in human diseases. LncRNAs deregulation is described in several diseases such as cancer and they can be used as a diagnostic or prognostic biomarkers. Previous research showed that lncRNAs CASC15 and NBAT1 is related to the biological behaviors of several cancers. Here, we aimed to explore in detail the expression profiles of CASC15 and NBAT1 in colorectal tumor tissues. In this study, NBAT1 and CASC15 LncRNAs were selected according to review literature and their expression levels were compared in 75 colorectal cancer (CRC) and adjacent normal tissues using RT-qPCR. Moreover, the expression of these genes assessed in TCGA-COA database. ROC curve analysis was performed to examine the diagnostic capacity of mentioned lncRNAs. Our results showed that the expression level of both CASC15 and NBAT1 increased significantly in tumor tissue compared to their normal tissue. The TCGA data verified high expression of these genes in CRC. The area under the curve (AUC) for CASC15 and NBAT1 were 0.879 and 0.6371 respectively. Additionally, CASC15 expression, but not NBAT1, was reduced significantly in patients under 65 years old in comparison to over 65 years old. In summary, although, CASC15 and NBAT1expression increased significantly in human CRC samples, only CASC15 suggested as a good biomarker for CRC diagnosis.