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C-Myc-activated long noncoding RNA CCAT1 promotes colon cancer cell proliferation and invasion

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Tumor Biology

Abstract

Recently, more and more evidence are rapidly accumulating that long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are involved in human tumorigenesis and misregulated in many cancers, including colon cancer. LncRNA could regulate essential pathways that contribute to tumor initiation and progression with their tissue specificity, which indicates that lncRNA would be valuable biomarkers and therapeutic targets. Colon cancer-associated transcript 1 (CCAT1) is a 2628 nucleotide-lncRNA and located in the vicinity of a well-known transcription factor c-Myc. CCAT1 has been found to be upregulated in many cancers, including gastric carcinoma and colonic adenoma-carcinoma. However, its roles in colon cancer are still not well documented and need to be investigated. In this study, we aim to investigate the prognostic value and biological function of CCAT1 and discover which factors may contribute to the deregulation of CCAT1 in colon cancer. Our results revealed that CCAT1 was significantly overexpressed in colon cancer tissues when compared with normal tissues, and its increased expression was correlated with patients’ clinical stage, lymph nodes metastasis, and survival time after surgery. Moreover, c-Myc could promote CCAT1 transcription by directly binding to its promoter region, and upregulation of CCAT1 expression in colon cancer cells promoted cell proliferation and invasion. These data suggest that c-Myc-activated lncRNA CCAT1 expression contribute to colon cancer tumorigenesis and the metastatic process and could predict the clinical outcome of colon cancer and be a potential target for lncRNA direct therapy.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81172266 to ZNF), the Life Health Technology Foundation of Jiangsu province (BL2012031), and the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu province (BK2011859 to ZNF).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Second Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China

    Xiaolu He, Xueming Tan, Limei Ma & Hong Yu

  2. Department of Endoscopy Center, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, 210029, People’s Republic of China

    Xiang Wang, Li Liu & Zhining Fan

  3. National Medical Center of Anorectal Surgery, Nanjing Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, China

    Heiying Jin

Authors
  1. Xiaolu He
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  2. Xueming Tan
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  3. Xiang Wang
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  4. Heiying Jin
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  5. Li Liu
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  6. Limei Ma
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  7. Hong Yu
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  8. Zhining Fan
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Zhining Fan.

Additional information

Xiaolu He and Xueming Tan contributed equally to this work.

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He, X., Tan, X., Wang, X. et al. C-Myc-activated long noncoding RNA CCAT1 promotes colon cancer cell proliferation and invasion. Tumor Biol. 35, 12181–12188 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13277-014-2526-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13277-014-2526-4

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