<p>Noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) are emerging as key molecules in human cancer, with the potential to serve as novel markers of disease and to      reveal uncharacterized aspects of tumor biology. Here we discover 121 unannotated prostate cancer-associated ncRNA transcripts (PCATs) by      <i>ab initio</i> assembly of high-throughput sequencing of polyA+ RNA (RNA-Seq) from a cohort of 102 prostate tissues and cells lines. We      characterized one ncRNA, PCAT-1, as a prostate-specific regulator of cell proliferation and show that it is a target of the polycomb      repressive complex 2 (PRC2). We further found that patterns of PCAT-1 and PRC2 expression stratified patient tissues into molecular subtypes      distinguished by expression signatures of PCAT-1-repressed target genes. Taken together, our findings suggest that PCAT-1 is a transcriptional      repressor implicated in a subset of prostate cancer patients. These findings establish the utility of RNA-Seq to identify disease-associated ncRNAs      that may improve the stratification of cancer subtypes.</p>

Molecular Profiling of Cancer

Transcriptome Sequencing Identifies PCAT-1, a Novel lincRNA Implicated in Prostate Cancer Progression