Aberrant expression of lncRNA Sox2ot is associated with advanced tumor progression and poor prognosis in patients with colorectal cancer

Abstract Background: Long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) plays an important role in carcinoma progression and prognosis. However, little is known about the pathological role of lncRNA Sox2ot in colorectal cancer (CRC) patients. This study sought to investigate the expression level of lncRNA Sox2ot in CRC, as well as explore its association with CRC progression and prognosis. Methods: LncRNA Sox2ot expression was measured in 117 paired CRC tissues and adjacent non-cancerous tissues using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). Then, the relationship between lncRNA Sox2ot expression and clinicopathological characteristic of CRC patients was detected by Chi-square test. Lastly, relationship between the expression level of lncRNA Sox2ot and overall survival (OS) was analyzed using Kaplan–Meier analysis and univariate and multivariate analyses were evaluated by Cox regression models. Results: The expression level of lncRNA Sox2ot in CRC tissues were significantly higher than in the adjacent non-cancerous tissues (P<0.05). In addition, high lncRNA Sox2ot expression was positively correlated with N stage, T stage, TMN stage, distant metastasis, histological differentiation grade and lymph node involvement in CRC patients (all, P<0.05). Kaplan-Meier analysis showed that patients with high expression of lncRNA Sox2ot had a shorter OS than those with low lncRNA Sox2ot expression (log rank test, P<0.001). Moreover, in univariate and multivariate Cox regression models, lncRNA Sox2ot expression was an independent prognostic factor for CRC patients. Conclusion: LncRNA Sox2ot over-expression may serve as an unfavorable prognosis predictor for CRC patients.