Herein, the expression of lncRNA DLEU2 was elevated in NSCLC tissues, and its high expression or low expression of miR-30a-5p acted as an independent prognostic factor of poor survival and tumour recurrence in NSCLC.
We found HDACs inhibitors trichostatin A (TSA) and sodium butyrate upregulated the expression of miR-15a/16-1, residing in the host tumor suppressor Dleu2 gene, through increasing the histone acetylation in the region of Dleu2/miR-15a/16-1 promoter in lung cancer cells.
Intriguingly, we observed a unique coordination in the splicing of MDM2-ALT1 and MDM4-ALT2 in approximately 24% of tumor samples in a manner similar to genotoxic stress response in cell lines.
We also demonstrate that DLEU2 overexpression blocks cellular proliferation and inhibits the colony-forming ability of tumor cell lines in a miR-15a/miR-16-1-dependent way.
Because of these results and that no mutations were detected on the two genes in a previous study, we think that Leu1 and Leu2 can be excluded as tumor suppressor genes.