Long non-coding RNA expression profiles reveals AK098783 is a biomarker to predict poor prognosis in patients with colorectal cancer.

Background: Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have essential regulatory function, yet their roles in colorectal cancer (CRC) are not well understood.

Materials and methods: Microarray was applied to detect lncRNAs expression profiles in tumor tissues, liver metastasis and paired adjacent normal tissues of CRC. And using RT-PCR to verify chip results.

Results: A total of 10 680 lncRNAs demonstrated differential expressions (fold change ≥2) between tumor tissues and adjacent normal tissues; furthermore there were 2970 lncRNAs, which showed different expression level between CRC tissues with liver metastasis and adjacent normal tissues. Especially, lncRNA-AK098783 expression level was frequently higher in cancerous tissues than corresponding noncancerous tissue. Higher AK098783 expression was significantly correlated with shortened overall survival (P < 0.001) and distant metastasis (P < 0.001).

Conclusions: Our results suggest that AK098783 is involved in distant metastasis and dramatically associated with poor prognosis in patients with CRC.