Over-expression of lncRNA SBF2-AS1 is associated with advanced tumor progression and poor prognosis in patients with non-small cell lung cancer.

Emerging evidence suggest that long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) may play important roles in human cancers. The aim of this study was to investigate the expression of SBF2-AS1 in non small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and its correlation with clinicopathological features and prognosis in NSCLC.The expression of lncRNA SBF2-AS1 was measured in 174 NSCLC samples and their matched non-tumor tissues by using RT-PCR. Association of SBF2-AS1 expression with clinicopathological features was analyzed in NSCLC. Kaplan-Meier analysis was performed to evaluate the overall survival of NSCLC patients.The expression of SBF2-AS1 was higher in NSCLC tissues compared with adjacent non-tumor tissues (p < 0.01). Additionally, high expression level of SBF2-AS1 was significantly associated with NSCLC histological grade, and lymph node metastasis. Furthermore, a higher SBF2-AS1 expression was demonstrated to be associated with poor overall survival times in NSCLC patients (p < 0.001). Multivariate analysis suggested that SBF2-AS1 expression was an independent prognostic factor for overall survival of patients with NSCLC (p = 0.013).Our data suggest that SBF2-AS1 could represent a novel prognostic marker and potential therapeutic target in patients with NSCLC.