Serum level of long noncoding RNA H19 as a diagnostic biomarker of multiple myeloma

Circulating long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) H19 has been reported to be a biomarker for cancer monitoring. Researchers at Nantong University set out to determine whether serum lncRNA could serve as a novel biomarker for the diagnosis of multiple myeloma (MM) and evaluate its value of clinical application. In this study, the expression of lncRNA H19 was up-regulated in 80 patients with MM and MM cell lines by RT-PCR analysis. Clinicopathological analysis showed the expression level of H19 could assist clinical staging, and the severity of the disease could be roughly determined according to the amount of H19 expressed in the patient serum. This is the first report to show that H19 was expressed in the serum of MM patients, suggesting that upregulation of serum lncRNA H19 may prove to be a novel biomarker for early diagnosis and clinical treatment of MM.

The expression level of H19 in serum was correlated with the clinical stage

(A) In DS staging, the expression of H19 was different in patients with different stages. (B) In ISS staging, the difference in serum H19 expression between patients at different stages was observed.