SNHG3 correlates with malignant status and poor prognosis in hepatocellular carcinoma

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been found dysregulated in human disease, especially in cancer. Small nucleolar RNA host gene 3 (SNHG3) is an lncRNA whose potential function and mechanism in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remain largely unknown. In the present study, we aimed to determine SNHG3 expression and its clinical significance in HCC. Our results showed that the expression level of SNHG3 was significantly upregulated in HCC tissues compared with paired noncancerous tissues from 51 HCC patients, as determined by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR; P < 0.001), which was consistent with the results of two independent HCC cohorts from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Oncomine databases (P < 0.0001 and P = 0.0325, respectively). These results were further confirmed in 144 paired paraffin-embedded HCC specimens by in situ hybridization assay (ISH). Furthermore, SNHG3 expression was significantly correlated with tumor size (P = 0.003), portal vein tumor thrombus (PVTT; P = 0.014), and relapse (P = 0.038). The high expression level of SNHG3 was markedly correlated with overall survival (OS; P < 0.0001), recurrence-free survival (RFS; P = 0.006), and disease-free survival (DFS; P < 0.0001). More importantly, multivariate analysis indicated that SNHG3 expression was an independent prognostic factor for HCC patients (P < 0.001). In conclusion, increased SNHG3 expression is associated with malignant status and poor prognosis in HCC patients.