Tissue levels of regulatory T cell related lncRNAs in lung cancer: evidence for dysregulation of immune responses.

Abstract

Background: Lung cancer is the second most prevalent malignancy among males and females and the leading cause of cancer deaths. Due to its high mortality, identification of novel therapeutic options is of critical value. Regulatory T cells and their associated transcripts are among possible targets for design of targeted therapies.

Methods: Here, we assessed expression of lncRNAs that are possibly involved in Treg lineage commitment and their plasticity in lung tumor tissues (TT) and normal tissues adjacent to the tumor (NTAT).

Results: We found up-regulation of TH2-LCR, IFNG-AS1, and MAFTRR in TT samples compared with NTATs. The highest difference in the expression between two sets of samples belonged to MAFTRR with expression ratio (95% CI) of 6.48 (2.67-15.7). TH2-LCR ranked second in this list with expression ratio (95% CI) of 5.23 (1.92-14.24). Finally, IFNG-AS1 was up-regulated in TT samples compared with NTATs with expression ratio (95% CI) of 3.3 (1.56-6.95). Then, the suitability of MAFTRR, TH2-LCR and IFNG-AS1 in the separation of TT samples from NTATs was assessed through plotting sensitivity values against 1-specifiicity values in ROC curves. The obtained AUC values were 0.74, 0.71 and 0.7, respectively.

Conclusion: In brief, we demonstrated dysregulation of three Treg-related lncRNAs in lung cancer tissues and suggested them as possible candidates for biomarker discovery investigations.