Long noncoding RNA HULC is a novel biomarker of poor prognosis in patients with pancreatic cancer.

Pancreatic cancer (PC) is the fourth leading cause of cancer-related mortalities in the USA and the sixth leading cause of mortality in China. Recent studies have shown that lncRNAs play important roles in carcinogenesis. The aim of this study was to explore the role of lncRNA HULC in PC. Quantitative real-time PCR was performed to investigate the expression of HULC in tumor tissues and corresponding normal tissues from 304 patients with PC. The higher expression of HULC was significantly correlated with large tumor size, advanced lymph node metastasis and vascular invasion. Multivariate analyses revealed that HULC expression served as an independent predictor for overall survival (P = 0.032). Further experiments revealed that HULC knockdown significantly repressed cell proliferation of PC in vitro. In conclusion, our results suggest that HULC may serve as a candidate prognostic biomarker through growth regulation in human PC.