Long noncoding RNA LINC01296 is associated with poor prognosis in ESCC and promotes ESCC cell proliferation, migration and invasion

B. Wang, T. Liang, J. Li

Department of Thoracic Surgery, Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing, China. jlline999@yeah.net

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• Oncology

OBJECTIVE: Recent studies have reported that long intergenic non-protein-coding RNA 1296 (LINC01296) regulates the tumorigenesis and the progression of several tumors, but the role of LINC01296 in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to examine the expression, function, and clinical significance of LINC01296 in ESCC.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: Expression of LINC01296 was analyzed in 221 ESCC tissues and three ESCC cell lines by Real-time quantitative RT-PCR. The correlation between LINC01296 levels and other clinical features, disease-free survival (DFS), and overall survival (OS) was analyzed statistically. The function of LINC01296 on cell proliferation, migration, and invasion was confirmed in vitro through MTT assay and transwell assay.

RESULTS: We found that LINC01296 was upregulated in ESCC cell lines and cancerous tissues, as compared with normal esophagus cells and adjacent normal tissue samples. High LINC01296 expression was significantly correlated with differentiation grade (p=0.000), lymph nodes metastasis (p=0.002), distant metastasis (p=0.002), and TNM stage (p = 0.015). Moreover, ESCC patients with high LINC01296 expression experienced shorter OS and DFS (p=0.0009 and p=0.0005, respectively). In addition, univariate and multivariate analysis showed that LINC01296 expression was an independent predictor for both OS and DFS in ESCC. Functionally, the results of in vitro assay indicated that down-regulation of LINC01296 significantly suppressed ESCC cells proliferation, migration, and invasion, suggesting that LINC01296 contributed to tumorigenesis of ESCC.

CONCLUSIONS: Our findings indicate that LINC01296 exerts a role in promoting the development of human ESCC. Up-regulation of LINC01296 could be considered as a predictor for diagnosis and prognosis of ESCC patients.

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