A review on the role of PCAT6 lncRNA in tumorigenesis.

Prostate cancer-associated transcript 6 (PCAT6) is a long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) firstly identified in 2013 through an integrative genomic analysis of different cancer tissues. This oncogenic lncRNA has been found to regulate carcinogenesis process in different tissues, including breast, ovary, stomach, bladder, colon, pancreas and liver. The role of PCAT6 in sequestering certain microRNAs has been well established. For instance, miR-4723-5p, miR-185-5p, miR-143-3p, miR-30, miR-15a, miR-513a and miR-204, and miR-326 are among those being sequestered by PCAT6. Over-expression of PCAT6 has been associated with poor clinical outcomes in diverse types of cancers including ovarian, bladder, colorectal and pancreatic cancers. In the present review, we summarize the impact of PCAT6 in the development of diverse types of cancers, based on the results of functional studies in cell lines, experiments in xenograft models of cancers and expression studies in samples obtained from human subjects.