Low expression of lncRNA-HMlincRNA717 in human gastric cancer and its clinical significances

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been gradually confirmed to be tumor-associated biological molecules in recent years. However, the clinical significances of most lncRNAs in the screening of gastric cancer are largely unknown. Based on our lncRNA array results, in this study, we explored the potential relationship between HMlincRNA717 expression levels and clinicopathologic factors of gastric cancer. A total of 313 samples were collected from two cancer centers, and then HMlincRNA717 level in human gastric cancer tissues and gastric cell lines was measured by real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction. Then, HMlincRNA717 levels at multiple stages of gastric tumorigenesis were investigated and the potential association between it levels, and clinicopathological features were analyzed. The expression levels of HMlincRNA717 in five gastric cancer cell lines, AGS, BGC-823, HGC-27, MGC-803, and SGC-7901, were significantly downregulated than those in normal gastric mucosal epithelial cell line GES-1. It was not only downregulated in 62.6 % (67/107) gastric cancer tissues compared with the paired adjacent normal tissues but also in gastric precancerous lesions. More importantly, our results indicated that HMlincRNA717 expression levels were correlated with cancer distal metastasis (P=0.034), venous invasion (P=0.029), and nervous invasion (P=0.024). Our data suggested that lncRNA-HMlincRNA717 may play crucial roles during cancer occurrence and progression and may be a new potential biomarker of early gastric cancer.