Association between polymorphisms in microRNA target sites and survival in early-stage non-small cell lung cancer

A high-throughput mapping method of RNA–RNA interactions by crosslinking, ligation, and sequencing of hybrids (CLASH) can not only provide information about canonical but also non-canonical interactions. We evaluated the associations between variants in microRNA target sites using CLASH data and survival outcomes of 782 early-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients who underwent curative surgical resection. Among the 100 variants studied, two variants showed significant association with survival outcomes. The POLR2A rs2071504 C > T variant was associated with poor overall and disease-free survival under a dominant model (hazard ratio [HR] 1.42, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.08–1.88; P = 0.01 and HR 1.34, 95% CI 1.08–1.67; P = 0.01, respectively). Patients carrying the NR2F6 rs2288539 TT genotype showed significantly better overall survival than those with the NR2F6 rs2288539 CC or CT genotypes (HR 0.13, 95% CI 0.02–0.90; P = 0.04). These findings suggest that POLR2A rs2071504 C > T and NR2F6 rs2288539 C > T can influence prognosis in early-stage NSCLC patients.