Background
As hybrid RNAs, transcription-induced chimeras (TICs) may have tumor-promoting properties, and some specific chimeras have become important diagnostic markers and therapeutic targets for cancer.
Conclusion
LC cells were enriched in the recurrent chimera COL7A1-UCN2, which potentially affected cancer stem cell transition, promoted epithelial-mesenchymal transition in LC, and resulted in poorer prognoses.
Methods
We examined 23 paired laryngeal cancer (LC) tissues and adjacent normal mucous membrane tissue samples (ANMMTs). Three of these pairs were used for comparative transcriptomic analysis using high-throughput sequencing. Furthermore, we used real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) for further validation in 20 samples. The Kaplan-Meier method and Cox regression model were used for the survival analysis.
Results
We identified 87 tumor-related TICs and found that COL7A1-UCN2 had the highest frequency in LC tissues (13/23; 56.5%), whereas none of the ANMMTs were positive (0/23; p < 0.0001). COL7A1-UCN2, generated via alternative splicing in LC tissue cancer cells, had disrupted coding regions, but it down-regulated the mRNA expression of COL7A1 and UCN2. Both COL7A1 and UCN2 were down-expressed in LC tissues as compared to their paired ANMMTs. The COL7A1:β-actin ratio in COL7A1-UCN2-positive LC samples was significantly lower than that in COL7A1-UCN2-negative samples (p = 0.019). Likewise, the UCN2:β-actin ratio was also decreased (p = 0.21). Furthermore, COL7A1-UCN2 positivity was significantly associated with the overall survival of LC patients (p = 0.032; HR, 13.2 [95%CI, 1.2-149.5]).