Downregulation of long noncoding RNA ZMAT1 transcript variant 2 predicts a poor prognosis in patients with gastric cancer.

Gastric cancer is the second most common cause of cancer-related death partially because of its aggressive metastasis and the fact that it is often diagnosed at an advanced stage. Recent studies have shown that long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) play critical roles in multiple biological processes including oncogenesis. In the present study, we found for the first time that the lncRNA ZMAT1 transcript variant 2 is downregulated in gastric cancer tissues compared with adjacent normal tissues (P<0.001). The expression of ZMAT1 transcript variant 2 was inversely correlated with lymph node metastasis (P<0.05), depth of tumor invasion and tumor node metastasis stage (P<0.05). Univariate and multivariate analyses showed that ZMAT1 transcript variant 2 expression was an independent predictor for overall survival (P<0.05). Our study suggests that ZMAT1 transcript variant 2 is a potential diagnostic factor in patients with gastric cancer.