LncRNA LINC00261 associates with chemoresistance and clinical prognosis in patients with epithelial ovarian cancer.

Objective: The purpose of this experiment is to explore the role of long intergenic noncoding RNA 261 (LINC00261) gene in the chemoresistance and clinical prognosis of epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC).

Methods: We used matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight (MALDI-TOF) mass spectrometry to detect the methylation levels of the LINC00261 promoter region in EOC patient specimens. The expression levels of LINC00261, miR-545-3p, and MT1M in EOC patients were evaluated by quantitative real-time reverse transcriptase PCR (RT-qPCR). Spearman's correlation analysis was used for relevance analyses and clinical prognosis was counted by Kaplan-Meier analysis. Stable overexpressed LINC00261 SKOV3 cells were established to test the influence of LINC00261 on proliferation, platinum sensitivity, migration, and invasion.

Results: The promoter region methylation level of the LINC00261 was hypermethylated and LINC00261 was significantly downregulated in platinum-resistant EOC tissues. The methylation level of LINC00261was significantly negative correlated with its RNA expression in EOC. Moreover, hypermethylation and lower expression of LINC00261 in EOC patients were related to shorter progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS). Furthermore, Spearman's correlation analysis showed that the expression of miR-545-3p had a negative relevance with LINC00261. According to the website prediction, MT1M might be the downstream target gene of LINC00261. Expression of MT1M was negatively correlated with miR-545-3p and positively with LINC00261 in EOC tissues. And lower MT1M mRNA expression was correlated with chemotherapy resistance and worse prognosis. In vitro, overexpression of LINC00261 could inhibit cisplatin resistance, proliferation, and suppression of migration and invasion in SKOV3 cells.

Conclusions: This research indicates that the aberrant hypermethylation and low expression of LINC00261 were associated with platinum resistance and adverse outcomes in EOC patients.