lncRNA ROR promotes the proliferation of renal cancer and is negatively associated with favorable prognosis.

Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is one of the third most common types of urological cancer worldwide. Long non‑coding RNA (lncRNA) ROR has been reported to be important in regulating the malignant activities of different types of cancer, however, the function of lncRNA ROR in RCC remains to be fully elucidated. In order to investigate the function of lncRNA ROR in RCC, reverse transcription‑quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT‑qPCR) analysis was used to detect the expression of lncRNA ROR in renal cancer tissues and adjacent tissues. Cell proliferation and apoptosis were determined using Cell Counting Kit-8 and apoptosis assays. Western blot analysis was used to measure the expression levels of c‑Myc and p53 following the suppression of lncRNA ROR in RCC cell lines. According to the results of the RT‑qPCR analysis, lncRNA ROR was found to be expressed at high levels in RCC tissues and cell lines. Patients with RCC exhibiting high expression levels of lncRNA ROR had shorter survival rates, compared with those with low expression levels of lncRNA ROR. The knockdown of lncRNA ROR resulted in a decrease of cell proliferation and increase of apoptosis in vitro. The suppression of lncRNA ROR also induced an increase in the expression of p53 and a decrease in the expression of c‑Myc in vitro. Taken together, these results demonstrated that lncRNA ROR was expressed at high levels in RCC tissue and cell lines, and was associated with the proliferation ability of RCC cells. These findings indicate that lncRNA ROR may be a promising therapeutic target for treating RCC.