Prognostic Effect of Long Noncoding RNA NEAT1 Expression Depends on p53 Mutation Status in Cancer.

Recently, many studies have revealed that long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) play important roles in various biological and pathological processes. Our previous study reported that lncRNA NEAT1 is a direct transcriptional target of p53. NEAT1 is an essential component of paraspeckles, which have recently been identified as a novel type of nuclear compartment. Although our previous findings indicate that NEAT1 induction contributes to the tumor-suppressor function of p53, the role of NEAT1 in cancer is still controversial. In this study, we comprehensively analyzed the relationship between NEAT1 expression and p53 mutation status. Interestingly, survival analysis based on NEAT1 expression in several cancer tissues revealed that the p53 wild-type group with high NEAT1 expression had a good prognosis, while poor prognosis or no correlation between NEAT1 expression and survival was observed in the p53-mutated group. These results demonstrate that the tumor-suppressive effect of NEAT1 depends on p53 function and is consistent with our previous report showing that NEAT1 supports the tumor-suppressive function of p53. Specifically, NEAT1 seems to play a tumor-suppressive role only in the presence of wild-type p53. These results provide important clues to the roles of NEAT1 in cancer.