MAPK14 and its associated lncRNAs are up-regulated in lung tumors

MAPK14 and its related lncRNAs have been found to take part in the pathogenesis of cancers. We analyzed expression of MAPK14 and three related lncRNAs, namely NORAD, HCG11 and POLR1HASP (ZNRD1ASP) in 42 pairs of lung tumors and their nearby normal samples. ZNRD1ASP was the mostly up-regulated gene in the tumors in the current study with the expression ratio (95% CI) of 10.46 (3.1-35.4). NORAD, HCG11 and MAPK14 were the other up-regulated genes in order with expression ratios (95% CIs) of 9.57 (2.99-30.6), 5.11 (1.65-15.8) and 4.9 (1.92-12.6), respectively. ROC curve analyses revealed that ZNRD1ASP had the highest accuracy and AUC values among the studied genes. However, NORAD with the sensitivity of 0.78 and negative predictive value of 70% performed better than the other transcripts in these two parameters. Taken together, MAPK14 and its related lncRNAs may have important roles in the pathogenesis of lung cancer.