International Journal of Molecular Sciences (Oct 2020)

Circular RNAs and Their Linear Transcripts as Diagnostic and Prognostic Tissue Biomarkers in Prostate Cancer after Prostatectomy in Combination with Clinicopathological Factors

  • Hannah Rochow,
  • Monika Jung,
  • Sabine Weickmann,
  • Bernhard Ralla,
  • Carsten Stephan,
  • Sefer Elezkurtaj,
  • Ergin Kilic,
  • Zhongwei Zhao,
  • Klaus Jung,
  • Annika Fendler,
  • Antonia Franz

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms21217812
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 21, no. 21
p. 7812

Abstract

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As new biomarkers, circular RNAs (circRNAs) have been largely unexplored in prostate cancer (PCa). Using an integrative approach, we aimed to evaluate the potential of circRNAs and their linear transcripts (linRNAs) to act as (i) diagnostic biomarkers for differentiation between normal and tumor tissue and (ii) prognostic biomarkers for the prediction of biochemical recurrence (BCR) after radical prostatectomy. In a first step, eight circRNAs (circATXN10, circCRIM1, circCSNK1G3, circGUCY1A2, circLPP, circNEAT1, circRHOBTB3, and circSTIL) were identified as differentially expressed via a genome-wide circRNA-based microarray analysis of six PCa samples. Additional bioinformatics and literature data were applied for this selection process. In total, 115 malignant PCa and 79 adjacent normal tissue samples were examined using robust RT-qPCR assays specifically established for the circRNAs and their linear counterparts. Their diagnostic and prognostic potential was evaluated using receiver operating characteristic curves, Cox regressions, decision curve analyses, and C-statistic calculations of prognostic indices. The combination of circATXN10 and linSTIL showed a high discriminative ability between malignant and adjacent normal tissue PCa. The combination of linGUCY1A2, linNEAT1, and linSTIL proved to be the best predictive RNA-signature for BCR. The combination of this RNA signature with five established reference models based on only clinicopathological factors resulted in an improved predictive accuracy for BCR in these models. This is an encouraging study for PCa to evaluate circRNAs and their linRNAs in an integrative approach, and the results showed their clinical potential in combination with standard clinicopathological variables.

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