Suppression of lncRNA NORAD may affect cell migration and apoptosis in gastric cancer cells.

Background: Gastric cancer (GC) is a major malignancy that threatens people's lives worldwide. Long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) non-coding RNA activated by DNA damage (NORAD) is known to be a potential oncogene in many cancers and may promote cell migration and metastasis, and decrease apoptosis rate.

Material And Methods: NORAD expression was measured in 70 pairs of GC tissues and their adjacent normal tissues (ANTs) by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. Si-NORAD gene knockdown study and cellular assays were conducted to assess the correlation between NORAD expression and cell viability, apoptosis, migration, and metastasis.

Results: NORAD was significantly overexpressed in GC tissues compared to ANTs (P value < 0.0001). The receiver operating characteristic curve indicated the AUC of 0.721 with the sensitivity and specificity of 78.57 and 61.43, respectively (P value < 0.0001). NORAD downregulation leads to decreased cell viability (P value < 0.001) and migration (P value < 0.01), increased apoptosis rate (P value < 0.0001), and increased protein level for PTEN, E-cadherin, and Bax, but decreased protein level for Bcl-2.

Conclusion: Generally, NORAD may serve as a potential diagnostic biomarker in GC.