Farbod Esfandi - Department of Medical Genetics, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran & GenIran Lab, Tashkhis Gene Pajohesh, Tehran, Iran.
Hamid Fallah - Department of Medical Genetics, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Shahram Arsang-Jang - Clinical Research Development Center (CRDU), Qom University of Medical Sciences, Qom, Iran.
Mohammad Taheri - Urogenital Stem Cell Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Soudeh Ghafouri-Fard - Department of Medical Genetics, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.

Background: Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been considered to be prospective biomarkers for diagnosing lung cancer due to the fundamental roles they hold in the regulating several cancer-related pathways.   Methods: Using the quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction method, we evaluated the expression of CCAT2, UCA1, PANDA and GHET1 lncRNAs in 32 lung cancer tissue samples and their corresponding adjacent non-cancerous tissues (ANCTs) from lung cancer patients admitted to the Labbafi-Nejad Hospital from 2015 to 2016. Results: No significant differences were found in the expression of lncRNAs within the tumoral and non-tumoral tissue samples. Bayesian Multilevel analysis showed no association between the expression of lncRNAs and the patient’s tumor node metastasis (TNM) stage following adjustments for age. Spearman correlation analysis revealed an inverse correlation between the expression of PANDA in tumoral tissues and age. Additionally, the difference in CCAT2 expression among the tumoral and non-tumoral tissues was inversely correlated with patientschr('39') age. Significant pairwise correlations were found between the expression of lncRNAs in both the tumoral and non-tumoral tissues. Conclusions: Despite the findings supporting a role for the lncRNAs, CCAT2, UCA1, PANDA and GHET1 in the pathogenesis of lung cancer, our data suggests no relationship for expression of these lncRNAs in lung cancer, questioning their potential as lung cancer biomarkers.  

GHET1, lncRNAs, Lung cancer, UCA1