title: Overexpression of the long non-coding RNA, linc-UBC1, is associated with poor prognosis and facilitates cell proliferation, migration, and invasion in colorectal cancer.
abstract: Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) serve comprehensive roles in various diseases, including cancer. lncRNA upregulated in bladder cancer 1 (linc-UBC1) is a notable biomarker of prognosis in certain cancer types; however, its involvement in the progression of colorectal cancer (CRC) remains unknown. The present study aimed to investigate the expression of linc-UBC1 in patients with CRC and to investigate its effect on CRC cells. The expression levels of linc-UBC1 were estimated by reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction in clinical CRC specimens and matched adjacent non-tumor mucosa from 96 cases of CRC, as well as in a number of CRC cell lines. In addition, the biological roles of linc-UBC1 were examined using a cell counting kit-8 assay, flow cytometry, and migration and invasion assays following the downregulation of linc-UBC1 by small interfering RNA. The results revealed that linc-UBC1 was significantly overexpressed in CRC tissues and the majority of CRC cell lines compared with the matched non-tumor mucosa and normal intestinal epithelial cells. Furthermore, high expression levels of linc-UBC1 were significantly associated with large tumor size, greater tumor depth, lymph node metastasis, and advanced tumor-node-metastasis stages. Patients with abnormal expression of linc-UBC1 had poorer overall survival times according to Kaplan-Meier analyses. Furthermore, multivariate Cox regression analysis indicated that linc-UBC1 was a significant independent prognostic factor. The results also revealed that reducing the expression of linc-UBC1 led to the inhibition of migration, invasion, and proliferation of CRC cells in vitro. Taken together, the results of the present study suggest that overexpression of linc-UBC1 promotes proliferation and metastasis in CRC, and may be considered as a novel diagnostic marker of CRC.
authors.affiliation: Department of General Surgery, The Second People's Hospital of Guangdong Province, The Third Clinical Medical College of Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Xunfeng
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.affiliation: Department of General Surgery, The Second People's Hospital of Guangdong Province, The Third Clinical Medical College of Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Jianfan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wen
authors.affiliation: Department of General Surgery, The Second People's Hospital of Guangdong Province, The Third Clinical Medical College of Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Peng
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.affiliation: Department of General Surgery, The Second People's Hospital of Guangdong Province, The Third Clinical Medical College of Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Guowei
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of General Surgery, The Second People's Hospital of Guangdong Province, The Third Clinical Medical College of Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Gangqing
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Zhang
keywords: colorectal cancer; diagnosis; gene function; linc-UBC1; long non-coding RNA; prognosis