Upregulation of a novel lncRNA KLHDC7B-DT in Head and Neck Cancers: Implications for Prognosis and Molecular Mechanisms

Head and neck cancer (HNC), the seventh most frequent malignancy globally, is a serious health concern. Despite advancements in treatment, the overall survival rate for HNC remains around 50%, with even poorer outcomes in metastatic cases. This highlights the urgent need to explore the molecular mechanisms underlying HNC for improved diagnostics and therapies. The importance of non-coding RNAs, especially long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), in a variety of malignancies, including HNC, has been highlighted in recent researches. Although lncRNAs and mRNA are very similar, lncRNAs do not encode proteins and they are longer than 200 nucleotides. While studies have implicated lncRNAs in several cancers, including HNC, their exact role in HNC remains unclear, and there are currently no clinically established lncRNA biomarkers for diagnosis or therapy. Thus, this study aims to identify novel lncRNAs and investigate their significance in HNC. For this, we looked over recent research and discovered a new lncRNA called KLHDC7B-DT. The KLHDC7B-DT is significantly upregulated in HNC patient samples, and this result is corroborated by TCGA HNC data and cell lines. Further investigation suggests that KLHDC7B-DT may be linked with cancer stage, grade, age, and worse patient survival. We identified potential miRNAs that interact with KLHDC7B-DT and presented mRNA targets of these miRNAs, along with their possible functions. We propose that KLHDC7B-DT may regulate IL-6 expression in HNC, either through miRNAs or alternative mechanisms. Additionally, we found a significant positive correlation between the neighboring protein-coding gene KLHDC7B and the KLHDC7B-DT in HNC, both of which are significantly upregulated in HNC. In conclusion, KLHDC7B-DT is upregulated in HNC and holds promise as a prognostic and therapeutic biomarker. This study marks the first report highlighting the significance of KLHDC7B-DT in HNC.