Downregulated Long Noncoding RNA BANCR Promotes the Proliferation of Colorectal Cancer Cells via Downregualtion of p21 Expression

BRAF activated non-coding RNA (BANCR), a long non-coding RNA (lncRNA), is crucial for cell migration in melanoma cells and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cells. However, little is known regarding the role of this gene in the proliferation of colorectal cancer. Therefore, we investigated the involvement of BANCR in the proliferation of colorectal cancer cells. In this study, we show that BANCR expression was significantly down-regulated in colorectal cancer tissues compared with normal tissues, and overexpression of BANCR suppressed colorectal cancer cell growth in vitro and in vivo. We also determined that pCDNA-BANCR-mediated colorectal cancer cell proliferation was associated with induction of G0/G1 cell-cycle arrest and apoptosis enhancement through regulation of p21, and its effects were most likely posttranscriptional. Taken together, our findings suggest that down-regulation of BANCR contributes to the proliferation of colorectal cancer cells, at least in part, through the regulation of p21 protein.