Background: Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been identified as important factors in cancer biology and are deregulated in many cancers. The present study aimed to determine the expression and roles of lncRNA DHRS4-AS1  in the progression of clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC).
Methods and results: Using high-throughput RNA-sequencing data of ccRCC tumors from the Cancer Genome Atlas project, we identified lncRNA DHRS4-AS1  as significantly associated with ccRCC patients’ overall survival. We confirmed the downregulation of DHRS4-AS1  in ccRCC by assessing its expression levels in a cohort of 52 tumor and paired non-tumor samples. In addition, we found that low DHRS4-AS1  expression was significantly associated with a high tumor node metastasis stage, lymph node metastasis, advanced pathological grade and poor prognosis. Furthermore, DHRS4-AS1  overexpression inhibited the progression of cell cycles of ccRCC in vitro. These data indicate that DHRS4-AS1  functions by preventing the proliferation and invasion, inhibiting the cell cycle progression and promoting the apoptosis of ccRCC cells.
Conclusion: Taken together, our findings identify the role of DHRS4-AS1  as a tumor inhibitor in ccRCC for the first time, demonstrating that DHRS4-AS1  is a potential prognostic biomarker that could potentially be applied in ccRCC therapy.
Keywords: long noncoding RNAs, DHRS4-AS1 , clear cell renal cell carcinoma, prognosis