Decreased expression of long non-coding RNA NBAT-1 is associated with poor prognosis in patients with clear cell renal cell carcinoma

Objective: accumulating evidence suggest that long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) may play important roles in human cancers. LncRNA neuroblastoma associated transcript-1 (NBAT-1) was initially identified to be involved in the progression of neuroblastoma. However, there is no report about the role of NBAT-1 in clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC). The purpose of this study is to investigate the clinical significant of NBAT-1 in ccRCC. Methods: the expression pattern of NBAT-1 in ccRCC patients and renal cancer cell lines was detected by using quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR), and its correlation with clinicopathologic features and prognosis of patients with ccRCC was assessed by Kaplan-Meier method and Cox proportional hazards model, respectively. Small interfering RNA (siRNA) was transfected into 786-O and ACHN cells to determine the effect of NBAT-1 knockdown on renal cancer cells. Result: NBAT-1 expression is significantly decreased in ccRCC tissues and renal cancer cells compared with adjacent normal tissues and normal human proximal tubule epithelial cell line HK-2, and its low level is associated with advanced features and poor prognosis. Also, multivariate analysis identified NBAT-1 expression as an independent prognostic factor for ccRCC. In vitro assays indicated that knockdown of NBAT-1 expression increased renal cancer cell proliferation, migration and invasion. Conclusions: NBAT-1 is a novel molecular correlated with ccRCC progression; and it may represent a prognostic biomarker and therapeutic target in renal cancer diagnosis and treatment.