Evaluation of HOTAIR and HOXC13 Genes in Tumor And Normal TissuesAdjacent to Tumor in Patients with Esophageal Cancer

One of the molecules that associated with cancer progression are Long noncoding RNA (LncRNAs). HOX transcript antisense RNA (HOTAIR) is a member of the lncRNA family. HomeoboxC13 (HOXC13) gene is one of the several HOX genes that is located near the HOTAIR. This studywas to evaluate the expression of HOTAIR and HOXC13 genes in tumor and normal tissues adjacent totumor in patients with esophageal cancer.

This is an experimental study. 30 pairs of esophageal tumor tissue and tumor margin tissuewere purchased. RNA of these tissues was extracted and Real-time PCR with Beta-actin gene was usedfor their relative expression. Statistical analysis of data, t-test and Analysis of variance (ANOVA) wereperformed in GraphPad Prism 8 software.

Comparison of target gene expression in esophageal tumor samples relative to tumor marginsshowed that the relative expression of the HOTAIR genes was 1.95 time (P=0.0219) and the HOXC13 14.4time (P=0.014) significantly increased expression. Also, the HOXC13 gene expression shows a significantrelationship with metastasis to distant regions, type and degree of tumor. The correlation coefficientbetween the relative expression of the HOTAIR and the HOXC13 genes was 0.152. It was positive but notsignificant between the two genes (P=0.2).

According to the association of the HOTAIR and the HOXC13 genes with cancer, our studymay partially express the role of these two genes in the tumorigenesis process in the development ofesophageal cancer.