Background: Long noncoding RNA single nucleotide polymorphisms (lncRNA-SNPs) PCAT1 rs710886, PRNCR1 rs1456315 and CCAT2 rs6983267 on 8q24 region present generalizability in the susceptibility to multiple cancers, however, the influence of rs710886, rs1456315 and rs6983267 on lung cancer has not been assessed. The aim of this study was to investigate associations between three lncRNA-SNPs and lung cancer.
Methods: A case–control study was performed on 438 patients with lung cancer and 456 healthy controls in the Han population from southern China. The collected samples were genotyped by the TaqMan genotyping, and the association with clinical characteristics, including age, gender, drinking status, smoking status, pathological types and clinical stages were analyzed. And the SNP function prediction was based on lncRNASNP2, RNAfold and GTEx.
Results: The rs1456315 T allele increased the risk of lung cancer [OR=1.95, 95% CI (1.58– 2.43), P =0.003] compared to the rs1456315 C allele, and rs1456315 significantly increased the risk of lung cancer in the dominant model [OR=1.86, 95% CI (1.16– 3.00), P =0.002]. The rs6983267 G allele, compared with the T allele, increased the risk of lung cancer [OR=1.29, 95% CI (1.07– 1.57), P =0.007], and rs6983267 was identified as a risk factor for lung cancer [OR=1.28, 95% CI (1.06– 1.55), P =0.003] in the additive model. Both rs1456315 and rs6983267 demonstrated significance after adjusting for the smoking status, drinking status and age. The structure prediction found rs6983267 and rs1456315 influence the secondary structure of its lncRNA. The results from lncRNASNP2 indicated that rs6983267 and rs1456315 change gain/loss target of miRNAs.
Conclusion: PRNCR1  rs1456315 and CCAT2  rs6983267 on 8q24 region are significantly associated with lung cancer in the Han population of southern China and alter the potential biological function in bioinformatic analysis, and the results further extended generalism of the susceptibility of cancer-associated lncRNA-SNPs to lung cancer and underlying mechanism involved in lung cancer.
Keywords: prostate cancer-associated transcript 1, prostate cancer noncoding RNA 1, colon cancer-associated transcript 2, long noncoding RNAs, single nucleotide polymorphism