Overexpression of HOTAIR in Tumor Tissues of Patients with Colon Cancer Correlates with Tumor Metastasis and Differentiation

Aberrant expression level of Hox transcript antisense intergenic RNA (HOTAIR) has been associated with the etiopathogenesis of numerous cancers. Studies on epidemiological data have demonstrated that the risk of susceptibility to colon cancer varies among different populations due to several reasons. In this study, we aimed to assess the expression level of HOTAIR in tumoral tissues of patients with colon cancer and compare it with normal marginal tissues.

In this case-control study, we recruited a total of 50 patients with colon cancer and collected tumoral and matched marginal tumor free tissues during surgery. Afterwards, we isolated the total RNA from each sample, synthesized cDNA, and performed quantitative analysis by Real-time PCR using the SYBR Green PCR Master Mix in order to measure the transcript level of HOTAIR in samples.

The expression level of HOTAIR was upregulated in tumor tissues compared with normal tumor-free marginal tissues belonging to colon cancer patients (P= 0.0023). Moreover, the expression level of HOTAIR and the clinicopathological specifications of the patients had statistically significant correlations.

HOTAIR may play a role in the development of colon cancer and have the potential for application as a biomarker for colon cancer prognosis.