Circular RNA circ-NT5C2 acts as a potential novel biomarker for prognosis of osteosarcoma
Authors: W-B Nie
F-G Ye
L-M Zhao
R Guo
M-X Wang
Journal: European review for medical and pharmacological sciences (2018)
Discipline: PHARMACOLOGY & TOXICOLOGY
Keywords: circRNAs; circ-NT5C2; osteosarcoma; prognosis; expression
Affiliations: Qingdao University Medical College, Qingdao, Shandong, China. .

Abstract:  Objective: Recent evidence suggests that circular RNAs (circRNAs) play important roles in multiple diseases, including cancer. Circ-NT5C2 was reported to be up-regulated in osteosarcoma. However, the clinical significance of circ-NT5C2 remains largely unclear. The aim of the current study was to investigate the value of circ-NT5C2 for the prognosis of patients with osteosarcoma. Patients and methods: the expression of circ-NT5C2 in osteosarcoma tissues and corresponding normal tissues were explored by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) experiments. The association of circ-NT5C2 expression with clinicopathological factors or the prognosis of osteosarcoma patients was also analyzed. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis was performed to analyze the association of circ-NT5C2 expression with overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) of patients. Univariate and multivariate Cox-regression analyses were used to identify risk factors for poor prognosis. Results: Our data showed a significant increase of circ-NT5C2 expression in osteosarcoma tissues compared with adjacent normal bone tissues (p &lt; 0.01). In addition, we found that the level of circ-NT5C2 in osteosarcoma was strongly correlated with clinical stage (p = 0.006) and distant metastasis (p = 0.001). Importantly, patients with high expression of circ-NT5C2 had a shorter OS (p = 0.006) and DFS (p = 0.001) than those with low expression of circ-NT5C2. Finally, Cox regression analyses showed that high circ-NT5C2 expression might be an independent prognostic parameter to predict poor prognosis. Conclusions: Our findings indicated that circ-NT5C2 is significantly up-regulated in osteosarcoma tissues. Circ-NT5C2 may represent a new marker of prognosis in osteosarcoma. 

Retracted: Yes

PubPeer comments:
 This paper does not seem to be able to take a decision on the type of patients that are described. * The title and Table 1 suggest it is about osteosarcoma patients. ![file] * The Methods Patients and Tissue Samples think it might be gastric cancer patients. ![file] * Statistical Analysis argues that brain tissues were analyzed ![file] * Figure 1 could have sworn they were liver tissues ![file] * Figure 2 and 3 say: Hold my beer. It is cervical cancer. ![file] Could the authors please clarify who is right? , 
 Being about five different cancers probably contributed to this paper being cited 17 times. , 
 Retracted [March 2021] . ---------------------------- We detected some serious inaccuracies and mistakes. Therefore, the article, u201cCircular RNA circ-NT5C2 acts as a potential novel biomarker for prognosis of osteosarcoma, by W.-B. Nie, L.-M. Zhao, R. Guo, M.-X. Wang, F.-G. Ye, published in Eur Rev Med Pharmacol Sci 2018; 22 (19): 6239-6244u2013DOI: 10.26355 eurrev_201810_16030u2013PMID: 30338784u201d has been withdrawn. The Publisher apologizes for any inconvenience this may cause. ,