Background: Colon cancer (CC) is a common digestive tract tumor, and the increase of new and dead patients every year still puzzles clinical workers. LncRNA eosinophil granule ontogeny transcript (EGOT ), as a newly discovered long-chain noncoding RNA (lncRNA), is differentially expressed in other tumors, but there are fewer studies of it in colon cancer.
Methods: The relative expression and diagnostic value of EGOT  in CC were detected and analyzed by starBase online website and qRT-PCR. The patients were followed-up for five years, and Cox regression was used to analyze the independent prognostic factors of CC. The effects of EGOT  overexpression (pcDNA-RGOT) on CC cell function were detected by CCK-8, transwell and flow cytometry. WB was applied to detect autophagy. The influence of knocking out EGOT  (sh-EGOT ) on tumor growth was observed by tumor allogeneic inhibition. The microRNA (miR) and mRNA in the downstream of EGOT  were predicted and the ceRNA network map was drawn.
Results: The online database and qRT-PCR detection showed that EGOT  was highly expression in patients with CC and had good diagnostic value. The five-year survival rate of patients with high expression of EGOT  decreased. EGOT  and TNM staging were independent prognostic factors of patients with CC. Functional analysis revealed that the growth and invasion abilities of cells increased, and the apoptosis rate decreased after overexpression. Upregulation of EGOT  inhibited autophagy of CC cells and promoted cell growth. However, the tumor in nude mice was significantly lessened after knockout of EGOT . Bioinformatic analysis showed that microRNA-33a-5p and microRNA-33b-5p had targeted binding sites with EGOT .
Conclusion: EGOT  is highly expressed in CC and has high diagnostic value. In addition, inhibition of EGOT  can promote autophagy of CC cells and inhibit cell growth and metastasis, which is expected to be a potential therapeutic index.
Keywords: LncRNA EGOT , colon cancer, diagnosis, autophagy