The purpose of this study was to assess the methylation patterns of the <i>DLK1-DIO3</i> cluster in patients with lung cancer to study its relevance in the pathogenesis of this disease.
Lung cancer cell line H1299, as well as the gene transfection and RNA interference technology were used to build DLK gene overexpression and knockdown cells.
We find that the expression of piRNAs encoded at DLK1-DIO3 enhances the prognostic potential of small non-coding RNAs specific to this locus in predicting patient outcome, further emphasizing the importance of regulation at this locus in lung cancer.