Previous studies have suggested that circular RNAs (circRNAs) serve crucial functions in various human diseases, including cancer. The results of the present study demonstrated that the expression levels of circ-0067934 were significantly increased in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) tissues and NSCLC cells compared with that in adjacent normal tissues and a normal human bronchial epithelium cell line, as assessed using reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction. Increased expression levels of circ-0067934 were associated with lymph node metastasis and advanced tumor stage in patients with NSCLC. Increased levels of circ-0067934 were significantly associated with the poor overall survival (OS) time of patients with NSCLC compared with low circ-0067934 expression levels, as assessed using Kaplan-Meier estimator survival curves and log-rank tests. Additionally, circ-0067934 was identified as an independent risk factor for OS time in patients with NSCLC, as assessed using univariate and multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression models. Additionally, cell proliferation and colony formation assays were employed to assess cell proliferation. The results demonstrated that the proliferative ability was significantly inhibited when circ-0067934 was knocked down in NSCLC cells. Therefore, these results indicated that circ-0067934 may be a predictive marker for the prognosis of NSCLC and a target for the treatment of the disease.
Keywords: cell proliferation; circ-0067934; circular RNA; non-small cell lung cancer; prognosis.