Long noncoding RNA CCAT2 promotes proliferation and metastasis in non-small cell lung cancer through the Wnt pathway

Colon cancer associated transcript 2 (CCAT2), a long non-coding RNA (lncRNA), was shown to be associated with colon, ovarian and prostate cancer. Recent studies showed CCAT2 was highly expressed in various tumors, including non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and probably being an independent prognostic factor of this disease. However, the physiological and biochemical mechanisms for CCAT2 with NSCLC were still unknown. In this study, we performed the analysis focused on the expression, biological functions and mechanism of CCAT2 in NSCLC and found that CCAT2 was significantly up-regulated in NSCLC tissues compared with corresponding non-cancerous tissues. Knockout of CCAT2 in NSCLC cell lines using lentivirus-mediated RNA interference significantly inhibited the proliferation and metastasis of the NSCLC cells. Most importantly, Wnt/β-catenin pathway was found to be inactivated in the NSCLC cell lines after CCAT2 knockout experiment. These results indicated that CCAT2 maybe serve as an oncogenic lncRNA that promoted proliferation and metastasis of NSCLC and activated the Wnt/β-catenin pathway.