In Silico and Experimental Analyses of Long Non-coding RNA TMPO-AS1 Expression in Iranian Patients with Gastric Cancer

In recent decades, many long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been reported to play a prominent role in tumorigenesis and the progression of human cancers, including gastric cancer (GC), a leading cause of cancer death in Iranian men and women. Studies have demonstrated that thymopoietin antisense transcript 1 (TMPO-AS1) was upregulated in different cancers by acting as an oncogenic lncRNA.

This study aimed to evaluate the expression of lncRNA TMPO-AS1 in Iranian patients with GC.

In order to conduct the present study, 40 gastric tumor samples and 40 marginal noncancerous counterparts were collected. The characteristics of patients’ samples were recorded, and the TMPO-AS1 expression levels were evaluated by qRT-PCR analysis. The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) data for TMPO-AS1 were used and analyzed through GEPIA and TANRIC online tools. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was used to estimate the diagnostic value. Student t-test, one-way ANOVA, and chisquare test were accomplished via SPSS software.

Our data demonstrated that TMPO-AS1 was overexpressed in cancerous tissues compared to adjacent nonmalignant ones (P = 0.0076). None of the demographic and clinicopathological data were associated with TMPO-AS1 expression levels. The TCGA data demonstrated that TMPO-AS1 was upregulated in GC tissues in comparison to adjacent nonmalignant ones (P = 0.001). ROC curve analysis suggested that TMPO-AS1 expression levels could discriminate GC tumor tissues from normal ones (AUC = 0.699, P = 0.001).

Altogether, in our study, we demonstrated that lncRNA TMPO-AS1 may be considered a biomarker in Iranian patients with GC. However, further investigations are required to confirm the potential application of this lncRNA in diagnosis, prognosis, and therapeutic applications of GC.