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. 2023 Apr 24;13(1):6677.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-32872-2.

mRNA markers associated with malignant pleural effusion

Shih-Chang Hsu  1   2 , Shan-Yueh Chang  3 , Yi-Ting Hwang  4 , Harn-Jing Terng  5 , Chen-Liang Tsai  3 , Chih-Hao Shen  3 , Shau Ku Huang  6   7 , Chih-Feng Chian  8
Affiliations

mRNA markers associated with malignant pleural effusion

Shih-Chang Hsu et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Malignant pleural effusions (MPE) commonly result from malignant tumors and represent advanced-stage cancers. Thus, in clinical practice, early recognition of MPE is valuable. However, the current diagnosis of MPE is based on pleural fluid cytology or histologic analysis of pleural biopsies with a low diagnostic rate. This research aimed to assess the diagnostic ability of eight previously identified Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC)-associated genes for MPE. In the study, eighty-two individuals with pleural effusion were recruited. There were thirty-three patients with MPE and forty-nine patients with benign transudate. mRNA was isolated from the pleural effusion and amplified by Quantitative real-time PCR. The logistic models were further applied to evaluate the diagnostic performance of those genes. Four significant MPE-associated genes were discovered in our study, including Dual-specificity phosphatase 6 (DUSP6), MDM2 proto-oncogene (MDM2), Ring finger protein 4 (RNF4), and WEE1 G2 Checkpoint Kinase (WEE1). Pleural effusion with higher expression levels of MDM2 and WEE1 and lower expression levels of RNF4 and DUSP6 had a higher possibility of being MPE. The four-gene model had an excellent performance distinguishing MPE and benign pleural effusion, especially for pathologically negative effusions. Therefore, the gene combination is a suitable candidate for MPE screening in patients with pleural effusion. We also identified three survival-associated genes, WEE1, Neurofibromin 1 (NF1), and DNA polymerase delta interacting protein 2 (POLDIP2), which could predict the overall survival of patients with MPE.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
ROCs for three- and four-gene models; Model 12: MDM2/RNF4/WEE1; Model 13: DUSP6/MDM2/WEE1; Model 14: DUSP6/MDM2/RNF4; Model 15: DUSP6/RNF4/WEE1; Model 16: DUSP6/MDM2/RNF4/WEE1; Model 17: DUSP6/MDM2/RNF4/WEE1/Age/Sex.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Histogram of risk score of samples (in percent).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Kaplan–Meier curve for the low-risk and high-risk groups derived from the multivariate Cox model.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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