Observational tissue analysis reveals marked upregulation of NF-κB and autophagy-associated genes in lung cancer, highlighting candidate diagnostic biomarkers.
Key Points
To evaluate the expression patterns and diagnostic potential of NF-κB-related pro-inflammatory and autophagic mRNA genes and lncRNAs in lung cancer tissues.
Evaluated expression levels of 3 mRNA-coding genes (C/EBPα, ATG5, IL-1B) and 6 lncRNAs (ANRIL, ADINR, CHAST, DICER1-AS1, HULC, NKILA) in 42 paired lung cancer and adjacent non-tumoral tissue samples.
ADINR, C/EBPα, CHAST, ATG5, IL-1B, and DICER1-AS1 were significantly upregulated in tumor samples compared with non-tumoral controls.
C/EBPα exhibited the greatest upregulation, with an expression ratio of 412 (95% CI: 159–1075, P < 0.0001), a diagnostic accuracy of 94.12%, and an AUC of 0.95 (positive predictive value 93.02%, negative predictive value 95.12%).
Additional diagnostic AUCs were 0.84 for IL-1B, 0.79 for CHAST, 0.77 for DICER1-AS1, and 0.74 for ADINR (overall accuracy ranging down to 72.26% for ADINR).