Long non-coding RNA LINC00899 as a novel serum biomarker for diagnosis and prognosis prediction of acute myeloid leukemia.

OBJECTIVE: Recently, several long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been implicated in acute myeloid leukemia (AML). However, the clinical significance of lncRNAs in AML patients still remains unclear. We aimed to evaluate the expression level of lncRNA LINC00899 (LINC00899) and its potential for diagnosis and prognosis in AML. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Expression levels of LINC00899 in bone marrow and serum obtained from AML patients and healthy controls were assessed by quantitative real-time PCR. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were used to evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of serum LINC00899. The association between serum LINC00899 expression and clinicopathological factors as well as the overall survival were analyzed.
RESULTS: We found that the levels of serum LINC00899 were frequently upregulated in the bone marrow and serum of AML patients. Higher expression of serum LINC00899 was positively associated with FAB classification (p = 0.002) and cytogenetics (p = 0.005). Moreover, ROC curve analyses showed that serum LINC00899 could discriminate AML patients from healthy controls with the area under the curve (AUC) of 0.807 (95% CI, 0.7262- 0.8752). In addition, the serum LINC00899 expression level was significantly reduced when the patients achieved complete remission. Kaplan-Meier analysis showed that patients with high serum LINC00899 expression had a shorter overall survival compared with the low serum LINC00899 expression group (p = 0.0013). Finally, Cox proportional hazards analysis showed that high serum LINC00899 expression was an independent prognostic marker of poor outcome.
CONCLUSIONS: We firstly found that serum LINC00899 might be a potential and useful noninvasive biomarker for the early clinical detection and prognosis of AML.