ABSTRACT
Objective: To investigate the expression level and clinical significance of a long non-coding RNA (LncRNA), BC200 in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and analyze its correlation with the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT)-related proteins, E-cad-herin, N-cadherin, and Snail. Methods: Sixty NSCLC and sixty paired adjacent tissue samples were collected to detect the BC200 levels. Furthermore, 40 samples of NSCLC and 40 samples of normal lung tissues were collected to quantify the messenger RNA (mRNA) lev-els of E-cadherin, N-cadherin, and Snail using quantitative polymerase chain reaction. The relationship between the BC200 level and mRNA levels of E-cadherin, N-cadherin, and Snail was explored in NSCLC tissues. The correlation between BC200 and clinical pathologi-cal parameters (gender, age, TNM stage, tumor size, lymph node metastasis, and pathologic type) was also analyzed. Receiver operat-ing characteristic curve (ROC) was constructed to evaluate the diagnostic efficiency of BC200. Immunohistochemical staining was per-formed to determine the expression levels of E-cadherin, N-cadherin, and Snail in 40 specimens of NSCLC and 20 specimens of normal lung tissue and their correlation to the expression levels of BC200 was evaluated. Results: 1) The expression of BC200, N-cadherin mRNA, and Snail mRNA was significantly upregulated in the tumor tissues when compared to that in normal lung tissues (P<0.05). The expression of E-cadherin mRNA was significantly lower in tumor tissues than in the normal lung tissues (P<0.05). 2) The positive rate of E-cadherin, N-cadherin, and Snail in NSCLC was 40% (16/40) , 57.5% (23/40), and 57.5% (23/40), respectively, while that of normal lung tissues was 95% (19/20), 5% (1/20), and 10% (2/20), respectively. There was a significant difference between these two data sets (P<0.05). 3) BC200 is highly expressed in the NSCLC tissues. The high expression of BC200 in lung cancer was correlated with lymph node metastasis, clinical stage, and positive rate of E-cadherin, N-cadherin, and Snail. The expression of BC200 in NSCLC tissues was negatively correlated with the expression of E-cadherin mRNA (r=-0.31, P<0.05) and positively correlated with the expression of Snail and N-cadherin mRNA (r=0.305, r=0.257, P<0.05). 4) ROC analysis of BC200 indicated a potential diagnostic value of BC200 levels in NSCLC . Conclusions: BC200 is highly expressed in NSCLC tissues, which was correlated with lymph node metastasis, clinical stage, E-cadherin, N-cadherin, and Snail positive rate. The expression of BC200 in NSCLC tissues was negatively correlated with E-cadherin and positively correlated with Snail and N-cadherin. BC200 may regulate the invasion and migration ability of NSCLC by EMT. BC200 may be a potential tumor marker for NSCLC diagnosis.