Long non-coding RNA bladder cancer-associated transcript 2 contributes to disease progression, chemoresistance and poor survival of patients with colorectal cancer

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the leading causes of cancer-associated mortality worldwide. Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been revealed to modulate various biological cell processes, and are involved in the initiation and progression of different diseases, including CRC. However, the role of lncRNA bladder cancer-associated transcript 2 (BLACAT2) in CRC has not been defined. The present study aimed to investigate the role of BLACAT2 in CRC. The present study measured the expression levels of BLACAT2 in CRC cells and tissues by reverse-transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction, and associations among BLACAT2 expression levels, important clinicopathological parameters and patient survival were statistically evaluated. The functional role of BLACAT2 in metastasis, proliferation and drug resistance was also detected. BLACAT2 was overexpressed in CRC cells and tissues, and high BLACAT2 expression was associated with larger tumor size, and more advanced lymph node (N), metastasis (M) and tumor-NM stages. Additionally, survival analysis demonstrated that patients with high BLACAT2 expression exhibited poor overall survival. Notably, high BLACAT2 expression was identified as an independent risk factor for overall survival. Migration and invasion assays revealed that BLACAT2 promoted migration and invasion, respectively. In addition, overexpression of BLACAT2 increased colony numbers and optical density values of CRC cells in a colony formation assay and an MTT assay, respectively. Furthermore, BLACAT2 levels were significantly increased in 5-fluorouracil-resistant cells, and overexpression of BLACAT2 was markedly associated with a low cell inhibition rate. In conclusion, BLACAT2 overexpression may contribute to the metastasis, proliferation and chemoresistance of CRC cells, and high BLACAT2 expression may be a promising prognostic marker for patients with CRC.