BBackground: Despite advances in cancer studies, colorectal cancer, as the third most common cancer, has
the highest mortality rate worldwide. Due to its high prevalence in the younger ages and advanced stages,
screening of this cancer with molecular methods is necessary. Studies have shown that HOTAIR gene plays
an important role in cancers. Our aim in the present study was to determine the expression of HOTAIR gene
in tumor and tumor margins of patients with colorectal cancer using Real-Time PCR.
Materials and method: In the present case-control study, 47 colorectal cancer patients who had referred to
Imam Reza Hospital in Tabriz from May to March 2011 were evaluated. Samples were subjected to extraction
of RNA after confirmation by the pathologist, and then the HOTAIR gene expression was measured and
analyzed using Real Time-PCR and Graph Pad Prism, respectively.
Findings: The expression level of HOTAIR in tumor samples was about seven times higher than that of
marginal samples (p = 0.0009). Also, by increasing the degree of tumor differentiation, the expression of
HOTAIR gene decreased (p = 0.023).
Conclusion: HOTAIR gene is involved in the pathogenesis of colorectal cancer, and the use of expression
analysis of this gene as a biomarker can be helpful in diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis of patients,
although more studies are needed to verify this claim.
Keywords: HOTAIR; Real time PCR; Colorectal cancer; lncRNAd.