Expression of lncRNA FGD5‐AS1 correlates with poor prognosis in melanoma patients

• Published in: The journal of gene medicine 2020-12, Vol.22 (12), p.e3278-n/a
• Main Authors: Gao, Yihong, Zhu, Hongliu, Mao, Qiuxia
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Antisense RNA; Antisense therapy; Gene therapy; lncRNA FGD5‐AS1; Medical prognosis; Melanoma; Multivariate analysis; Non-coding RNA; Polymerase chain reaction; Prognosis; Ribonucleic acid; RNA; Survival; Therapeutic targets; Tumors
• ISSN: 1099-498X; 1521-2254
• DOI: 10.1002/jgm.3278

Background Growing evidence demonstrates that long non‐coding RNAs (lncRNAs) play an important role in cancer origination and progression. A novel identified lncRNA, FGD5 antisense RNA 1 (FGD5‐AS1), was reported to be overexpressed in several tumors. The present study aimed to investigate the expression of FGD5‐AS1 in melanoma and its associations with clinical prognosis in melanoma patients. Methods The expression levels of FGD5‐AS1 in 188 pairs of melanoma specimens and matched non‐tumor specimens were determined using a real‐time polymerase chain reaction. A chi‐squared test was performed to determine the relationship between FGD5‐AS1 levels and clinicopathological features. The overall survival rates of melanoma patients based on the expression of FGD5‐AS1 were calculated by the Kaplan–Meier method with a log‐rank test. Finally, univariate and multivariate assays were carried out to determine whether FGD5‐AS1 was a prognostic factor in melanoma patients. Results We observed that FGD5‐AS1 in melanoma specimens was distinctly up‐regulated compared to adjacent non‐tumor specimens (p < 0.01). In malignant cases, higher expression of FGD5‐AS1 was prominently associated with tumor thickness (p = 0.024) and advanced tumor stage (p = 0.039). The data from our clinical study revealed that patients with high FGD5‐AS1 expression had a distinctly shorter overall survival (p = 0.0034) and disease‐free survival (p < 0.0001) than those with low FGD5‐AS1 expression. Multivariate analysis demonstrated that high FGD5‐AS1 expression may serve as a potential independent prognostic factor in melanoma. Conclusions FGD5‐AS1 may act as a prognostic predictor and a possible drug‐target for melanoma patients. Long non‐coding RNA FGD5‐AS1 is distinctly up‐regulated in melanoma specimens and may be a novel regulator in melanoma progression.