Aberrant Expression of the Long Non-coding RNA and Its Prognostic Significance in Patients with Colorectal Cancer.

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), which have emerged as important regulatory RNA molecules that have been implicated in carcinogenesis and cancer progression, may also serve as novel potential biomarkers for cancer diagnosis and prognosis. Our previous analysis has identified the lncRNA , the ghrelin antisense strand non-coding RNA gene, as one of the hub genes in the co-expression network of differentially expressed lncRNAs/mRNAs in colorectal cancer (CRC). Here, we further evaluate the expression of in CRC and explore its clinical significance. The expression of in 366 pairs of CRC and adjacent non-cancerous tissues was detected by quantitative RT-PCR assays. The results showed that the expression level of was significantly lower in CRC tissues than in matched non-cancerous tissues ( < 0.001). Decreased expression was observed in 54.4% (199/366) of cases, and was significantly correlated with the occurrence of lymph node metastasis ( = 0.033) and distant metastasis ( = 0.005). A Kaplan-Meier analysis demonstrated that decreased expression contributed to poor disease-free survival (log-rank test, < 0.001) and overall survival (log-rank test, < 0.001). Moreover, a multivariate Cox regression analysis revealed the decreased expression of as an independent prognostic marker of poor outcomes [disease-free survival: hazard ratio (HR) = 2.02, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.42-3.88; overall survival: HR = 1.96, 95% CI = 1.34-2.86] in CRC patients. In conclusion, our data suggest that the lncRNA might serve as a candidate biomarker of tumor metastasis and a prognostic indicator in CRC.