LncRNA CASC11 promotes the development of esophageal carcinoma by regulating KLF6
Authors: R-Y Xu
S-G Chen
R-Q He
C-H Wang
C-B Ji
Journal: European review for medical and pharmacological sciences (2019)
Discipline: PHARMACOLOGY & TOXICOLOGY
Keywords: lncRNA CASC11; esophageal carcinoma; clinical progression; pathological parameters; prognosis
Affiliations: Department of Thoracic Surgery, Quanzhou First Hospital Affiliated to Fujian Medical University, Quanzhou, China. .

Abstract:  Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the expression level of long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) CASC11 in esophageal carcinoma (ECa), and to further explore its relationship with clinical progression, pathological parameters, and prognosis of ECa patients. Patients and methods: Quantitative Real Time-Polymerase Chain Reaction (qRT-PCR) was used to examine the level of lncRNA CASC11 in 45 pairs of ECa tissues and adjacent normal tissues. The relationship between the lncRNA CASC11 level and clinical progression, pathological parameters, and prognosis of ECa patients was analyzed. Meanwhile, the level of lncRNA CASC11 in the ECa cell lines was verified by qPCR as well. In addition, lncRNA CASC11 knockdown model was constructed using lentiviral transfection in ECa cell lines. Subsequently, the cell counting kit-8 (CCK8), colony formation assay, and flow cytometry were used to explore the effect of lncRNA CASC11 on the biological functions of the ECa cells. Finally, the Western Blot and the recovery experiments were used to explore the potential mechanism. Results: In this work, the qPCR results showed that the expression level of lncRNA CASC11 in the ECa tissues was remarkably higher than that of the adjacent normal tissues, and the difference was statistically significant (p&lt;0.05). Compared with patients with a low level of lncRNA CASC11, the pathological stage of patients with high expression was significantly higher, while the overall survival rate was lower (p&lt;0.05). Compared with negative control (NC) group, the proliferation ability of the cells in the lncRNA CASC11 knockdown group CASC11 significantly decreased, whereas cell apoptosis remarkably increased (p&lt;0.05). The Western Blot results revealed that protein expression of KLF6 was remarkably up-regulated after lncRNA CASC11 knockdown. In addition, the recovery experiments found that lncRNA CASC11 and KLF6 had mutual regulation, thereby promoting the malignant progression of ECa. Conclusions: LncRNA CASC11 expression was remarkably up-regulated in ECa, which was associated with the pathological stage and poor prognosis of ECa. In addition, lncRNA CASC11 could promote the malignant progression of ECa by mutual regulation of KLF6. 

Retracted: No

PubPeer comments:
 This paper appears to be part of a large set of papers (n=190 as of today and growing) that share a very similar layout. Subsets of these papers appear to share similar Kaplan-Meier survival plots, correlation plots, and overlapping photos of wound-healing, transwell assays, flow cytometry panels etc. Yet, there is little to no overlap between the authors of these papers or their departments and affiliated institutions. The very similar layout and overlapping photos suggest these papers might have all been created by the same entity, perhaps a paper mill. I have been calling this set the  Comb papers, because the Kaplan-Meier plots have a comb-like appearance. For PubPeer user Hoya Camphorifolia, the survival plots look like Lego blocks. Many of these survival plots show a sudden drop of survival at 75 months. Another characteristic is the lack of percentages in their Tables I, in columns labeled with percentages. Here is Figure 1C to show the survival plot featured in this paper. ![file] Here is Table 1 that fits the description. ![file] , 
 Figure 4E. * Red boxes: a panel shows a remarkable similarity to Figure 4D in another  Comb paper, from a different group of authors, i.e. L Wu et al., ERMPS (2019), DOI: 10.26355 eurrev_201911_19425 - https: pubpeer.com publications 0694ED3C8AD059650637D5A1B00166 ![file] ,