Overexpression of long noncoding RNA HOTAIR predicts a poor prognosis in patients with cervical cancer.

Purpose: The long noncoding RNA HOTAIR has been reported to be a good biomarker for poor prognosis in a variety of human cancers. However, whether HOTAIR could serve as novel biomarker to predict prognosis in cervical cancer or not is unknown. The aim of the present study was to examine the expression of HOTAIR in cervical cancers and to investigate the relationship between this lncRNA expression levels and existing clinicopathological factors and patient survival.

Methods: We examined the expression of HOTAIR in 218 cervical cancer tissues and matched 218 adjacent normal tissues using quantitative real-time RT-PCR and analyzed its correlation with the clinical parameters.

Results: The results showed that HOTAIR expression in cervical cancer tissues was significantly upregulated compared with the matched nontumorous tissues (P < 0.0001). Increased HOTAIR expression was significantly correlated with FIGO stage (P < 0.0001), lymph node metastasis (P < 0.0001), depth of cervical invasion (P < 0.0001), tumor size (P = 0.006) and age (P = 0.020), but not other clinical characteristics. Moreover, cervical cancer patients with HOTAIR higher expression have shown significantly poorer overall survival (P < 0.0001) and disease-free survival (P < 0.0001) than those with lower HOTAIR expression. Univariate (P < 0.0001, HR = 4.566, 95 % CI 2.122-9.825) and multivariate (P = 0.012, HR = 2.863, 95 % CI 1.263-76.490). Cox regression analyses showed that HOTAIR expression served as an independent predictor for overall survival.

Conclusions: our data indicate that high expression of HOTAIR is involved in cervical cancer progression and could be a potential target for diagnosis and gene therapy.