Detection of serum long non-coding RNA UCA1 and circular RNAs for the diagnosis of bladder cancer and prediction of recurrence.

Accumulating evidence indicates that long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) and circular RNAs (circRNAs) may be biomarkers for the diagnosis and prediction of recurrence in tumor patients because they play an important role in tumorigenesis and progression. In this study, the expression of lncRNA urothelial carcinoma-associated 1 (UCA1) and associated circFARSA, circSHKBP1, and circBANP was investigated in serum specimens from bladder cancer (BC) patients and healthy controls using real-time PCR. When comparing patients with BC to healthy controls, the expression of lncRNA UCA1, circFARSA, and circSHKBP1 was significantly increased. The area under the curve (AUC) of the lncRNA UCA1 and circSHKBP1 signature to distinguish BC patients from controls was 0.804. The diagnostic performance of this signature was more optimal for low volume tumors (AUC = 0.870). Moreover, we determined that the expression of circFARSA, circSHKBP1, and circBANP was higher for recurrent BC than for patients without recurrence. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis revealed that a combination of circFARSA and circBANP levels was able to discriminate the patients with tumor recurrence from those without, with an area under the ROC curve of 0.737. In conclusion, our results identified an lncRNA UCA1: circSHKBP1 panel and a circFARSA: circBANP panel for BC diagnosis and prognosis, respectively. IJCEP