Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are a class of transcriptional RNA molecules with a length of greater than 200 nucleotides that function as regulatory factors in many human diseases. Studies have shown that lncRNAs are involved in multiple cellular processes, including proliferation, apoptosis, migration, and invasion. In this report, a long non-coding RNA-ATB that is overexpressed in various tumor tissues and cell lines was investigated. Recent evidence suggests that ATB is dysfunctional in a variety of cancers, including hepatocellular carcinoma, gastric cancer (GC), colorectal cancer (CRC), breast cancer (BC), prostate cancer, renal cell carcinoma, non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), pancreatic cancer, osteosarcoma, and glioma. The high expression of ATB is associated with clinicopathological features of cancer patients. In addition, overexpression of lncRNA-ATB can promote tumor proliferation, migration, and invasion. LncRNA-ATB induces epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) by competitively binding to miRNAs, thus promoting tumor progression. Biological functions and mechanisms of ATB in human cancers are discussed here, concluding that lncRNA-ATB may provide a new biomarker for use in diagnosis and prognosis of cancer.
Keywords: ATB; diagnostic biomarker; human cancers; long non-coding RNA; therapeutic targets.