Up-regulation of long non-coding RNA PCAT-1 correlates with tumor progression and poor prognosis in gastric cancer.

OBJECTIVE Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), emerging non-coding RNAs, have been proved to serve as a critical role in the proliferation, metastasis apoptosis of gastric cancer. However, the potential biological role PCAT-1 in gastric cancer (GC) remains undefined. The present study aimed to investigate the expression and clinical significance of PCAT-1 in GC. PATIENTS AND METHODS The expression of PCAT-1 was detected with a quantitative Real-time PCR assay. The association between PCAT-1 expression and clinicopathological factors, as well as survival rates, was analyzed. Cox proportional-hazards regression analysis was applied in order to estimate univariate and multivariate hazard ratios for overall survival. Then, effects of PCAT-1 on the biological behavior of GC cells were investigated. RESULTS We found that PCAT-1 expression was elevated in GC tissues and cell lines, and PCAT-1 levels were highly positively correlated with invasion depth (p < 0.001), TNM stages (p < 0.001) and lymphatic metastasis (p = 0.003). The biological function of PCAT-1 was explored and the results showed silencing of PCAT-1 could suppress cell proliferation, migration and invasion in vitro. Kaplan-Meier analysis demonstrated that increased PCAT-1 expression contributed to poor overall survival (OS) (p < 0.01). Furthermore, in a multivariate Cox model, our results showed that PCAT-1 expression was an independent poor prognostic factor for OS in GC. CONCLUSIONS Our finding suggested that PCAT-1 may have potential roles as a biomarker and/or a therapeutic target in gastric cancer.