LONG NON-CODING RNA H19 AS POTENTIAL BIOMARKER FOR HCV GENOTYPE 4 INDUCED HEPATOCELLULAR CARCINOMA PATIENTS

The H19 gene is an oncofetal RNA expressed during embryo development and in several types of cancer. However, little is known about the role of the plasma H19 in liver cancer diagnosis. The current study aimed at measuring the plasma levels of long non-coding RNAs (H19) expression in chronic liver disease (CLD) due to HCV genotype 4 infections with/without cirrhosis and Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients in an attempt to evaluate the potential benefits of these new circulating, noninvasive, diagnostic, prognostic and epigenetic markers for liver cirrhosis and carcinogenesis of Egyptian patients. A hundred subjects were included in this study, divided into two groups; Group I (50 patients) were classified into subgroup Ia (CLD without cirrhosis, n=25) and subgroup Ib (CLD with cirrhosis, n=25), Group II (CLD patients with HCC, n=25), and control (Healthy volunteer, n=25). The expression of lncRNAs (H19) genes was analyzed by Real-Time PCR.   LncRNAs (H19) showed upregulation in all diseased groups, which was in consistence with the progression of the disease toward the HCC stage. In addition, H19 showed a diagnostic ability to discriminate between cases of cirrhosis and HCC compared to healthy control (p< 0.001), while it did not show a discrimination significance differences between cirrhotic cases and non cirrhotic cases.  By using receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) analysis, it was found that H19 could diagnose HCC with AUC (81.4%). The increased H19 expression was associated with advanced tumor stages and higher grades. Plasma level of H19 marker might serve as a potential non-invasive biomarker for diagnosis of HCC.