Expression of Hox transcript antisense RNA, enhancer of zeste homolog 2 and vascular endothelial growth factor in nasopharyngeal carcinoma tissues and their correlation with prognosis / 中国耳鼻咽喉头颈外科

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE To explore the expression of long non-coding RNA (LncRNA) HOTAIR, enhancer of Zeste homolog 2 (EZH2) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) and their relationship between HOTAIR and prognosis. METHODS We examined the expression of HOTAIR, EZH2 and VEGF in NPC tissues, and analyzed the clinical significance of HOTAIR expression in patients with NPC. RESULTS We found that the expression of HOTAIR, EZH2 and VEGF in the NPC tissues were significantly higher than those in the chronic nasopharyngitis tissues in the gene and protein levels (U=955,P<0.05). The HOTAIR was positively correlated with VEGF (r=0.599,P<0.001), VEGF was positively correlated with EZH2 (r=0.369, P=0.012), and HOTAIR had no significant correlation with EZH2 (r=0.139,P=0.357). Moreover, HOTAIR expression levels increased with clinical stage progression. CONCLUSION The expression of HOTAIR, EZH2 and VEGF were significantly increased in the NPC tissues, and the expression of HOTAIR was related with the TNM stage, the clinical stage and the short term therapeutic effect of the NPC patients, which indicated that the HOTAIR might be used as a biological indicator to determine the prognosis of the NPC.