Transcriptome Analysis Identifies Piwi-Interacting RNAs as Prognostic Markers for Recurrence of Prostate Cancer

Yuanli Zuo; Yu Liang; Jiting Zhang; Yingyi Hao; Menglong Li; Zhining Wen; Yun Zhao

doi:10.3389/fgene.2019.01018

Transcriptome Analysis Identifies Piwi-Interacting RNAs as Prognostic Markers for Recurrence of Prostate Cancer

Front Genet. 2019 Oct 22:10:1018. doi: 10.3389/fgene.2019.01018. eCollection 2019.

Authors

Yuanli Zuo¹, Yu Liang², Jiting Zhang¹, Yingyi Hao², Menglong Li², Zhining Wen^{2

3}, Yun Zhao¹

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Bio-Resource and Eco-Environment of Ministry of Education, College of Life Sciences, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.
² College of Chemistry, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.
³ Medical Big Data Center, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.

Abstract

Prostate cancer remains the second leading cause of male cancer death, and there is an unmet need for biomarkers to identify patients with such aggressive disease. Piwi-inteacting RNAs (piRNAs) have been classified as transcriptional and posttranscriptional regulators in somatic cells. In this study, we discovered three piRNAs as novel prognostic markers and their association with prostate cancer biochemical recurrence was confirmed in validation data set. To obtain a better understanding of piRNA expression patterns in prostate cancer and to find gene coexpression with piRNAs, we performed weighted gene coexpression network analysis. Target genes of three piRNAs have also been predicted based on base complementarity and expression correlativity. Functional analysis revealed the relationships between target genes and prostate cancer. Our work also identified differential expression of piRNAs between Gleason stage 3 + 4 and 4 + 3 prostate cancer. Overall, this study may explain the roles and demonstrate the potential clinical utility of piRNAs in prostate cancer in a way.

Keywords: WGCNA; biomarker; piRNA; prostate cancer; survival analysis.