Research Paper|Volume 12, Issue 14|pp 15002—15010

Five-lncRNA signature in plasma exosomes serves as diagnostic biomarker for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

Zichen Jiao^1,^2,³, Ao Yu³, Weiwei Rong², Xiaofeng He³, Ke Zen², Minke Shi³, Tao Wang^1,³

¹Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China
²School of Life Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China
³Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital, Medical School of Nanjing University, Nanjing, China

* Equal contribution

Received: March 25, 2020Accepted: June 4, 2020Published: June 28, 2020

Copyright: © 2020 Jiao et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Changes in expression of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) in plasma exosomes can be useful for diagnosis of cancer patients. Here, we conducted a four-stage study to identify plasma exosome lncRNAs with diagnostic potential in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). First, plasma exosome lncRNA expression profiles were examined in ESCC patients, esophagitis patients, and healthy controls using RNA sequencing. Differentially expressed plasma exosome lncRNAs from the lncRNA expression profile were then evaluated by qRT-PCR in a large cohort of ESCC patients, esophagitis patients, and healthy controls. Expression levels of the lncRNAs NR_039819, NR_036133, NR_003353, ENST00000442416.1, and ENST00000416100.1 were significantly higher in exosomes from ESCC patients than non-cancer controls. We also confirmed that levels of these five plasma exosome lncRNAs decreased markedly in ESCC patients after surgery. Our results suggest that these five exosome lncRNAs may serve as highly effective, noninvasive biomarkers for ESCC diagnosis.