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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Oct 21, 2016; 22(39): 8735-8749
Published online Oct 21, 2016. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v22.i39.8735
Metastasis-associated long noncoding RNAs in gastrointestinal cancer: Implications for novel biomarkers and therapeutic targets
Fei-Fei Zhang, Yu-Hao Luo, Hui Wang, Liang Zhao
Fei-Fei Zhang, Yu-Hao Luo, Liang Zhao, Department of Pathology, Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou 510000, Guangdong Province, China
Hui Wang, Department of Medical Oncology, Affiliated Tumor Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou 510000, Guangdong Province, China
Liang Zhao, Department of Pathology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou 510000, Guangdong Province, China
Author contributions: Zhang FF and Luo YH contributed equally to this work; Zhang FF, Luo YH, Wang H and Zhao L prepared the manuscript.
Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 81272762 and No.81201635; and the Guangdong Natural Science Funds for Distinguished Young Scholar, No. S20120011334.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Authors declare no conflict of interests for this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Liang Zhao, MD, Department of Pathology, Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University, No. 1838 Guangzhoudadao South Road, Guangzhou 510000, Guangdong Province, China. liangsmu@foxmail.com
Telephone: +86-20-62789365 Fax: +86-20-62789365
Received: March 17, 2016
Peer-review started: March 20, 2016
First decision: June 20, 2016
Revised: July 5, 2016
Accepted: August 23, 2016
Article in press: August 23, 2016
Published online: October 21, 2016
Processing time: 217 Days and 6.1 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), a newly discovered class of non-coding RNA molecules, have been widely identified as crucial regulators of various diseases including cancer. Aberrant expression of lncRNAs frequently occurs in gastrointestinal cancer and plays emerging roles in cancer metastasis. We focus on and outline the regulatory functions of recently identified metastasis-associated lncRNAs and evaluate the potential roles of lncRNAs as novel diagnostic biomarkers and therapeutic targets in gastrointestinal cancer.