Medicine (2019) 98:52

Long non-coding RNA zinc finger antisense 1 expression associates with increased disease risk, elevated disease severity and higher inflammatory cytokines levels in patients with lumbar disc degeneration

Ruo-Yu Deng, Tian Hong, Chun-Ying Li, Chun-Li Shi, Cheng Liu, Fang-Yu Jiang, Jun Li, Xiao-Man Fan, Shuang-Bing Feng, Yi-Fan Wang

First author: Ruo-Yu Deng, Shanghai Qeejen Bio-tech Institution,

Abstract
This study aimed to investigate the correlation of long noncoding RNA zinc finger antisense 1 (lncRNA ZFAS1) expression with
disease risk, disease severity and inflammatory cytokines levels in lumbar disc degeneration (LDD) patients. 83 LDD patients underwent surgery and 28 traumatized, non-LDD patients underwent lumbar disc surgery (controls) were consecutively enrolled in this case-control study. Lumbar disc tissue was obtained during surgery and herniated nucleus pulposus (HNP) was isolated to detect lncRNA ZFAS1 expression and inflammatory cytokines mRNA levels by RT-qPCR, and determine protein levels of inflammatory cytokines by western blot. HNP lncRNA ZFAS1 expression in LDD patients was up-regulated compared with controls (P<.001), and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve showed lncRNA ZFAS1 expression disclosed a good predictive value for LDD risk with area under curve (AUC) 0.753 (95% CI 0.646–0.859). And after adjustment by age, gender and body mass index (BMI), lncRNA ZFAS1 (P=.017) remained to be an independent predictive factor for higher LDD risk. In addition, lncRNA ZFAS1 expression was positively associated with Modified Pfirrmann Grade (P=.015). As to inflammatory cytokines, lncRNA ZFAS1
expression was observed to be positively correlated with TNF-a (P=.002), IL-1b (P=.007) and IL-6 (P=.015) mRNAs expressions while reversely associated with IL-10 mRNA level (P=.014); and lncRNA ZFAS1 expression was also positively correlated with protein levels of TNF-a (P=.038) and IL-6 (P=.027) while reversely associated with IL-10 protein expression (P=.039). lncRNA ZFAS1 expression associates with increased risk, elevated disease severity and higher inflammatory cytokines levels in
LDD patients.

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