Prognostic value and oncogenic effect of increased RBM8A expression in colon adenocarcinoma.

RNA Binding Motif Protein 8A (RBM8A) is a component of the spliceosome, which couples pre- and post-mRNA splicing events. Dysregulated expression of RBM8A has been recently discovered in hepatocellular carcinoma and gastric cancer. This study aimed to investigate the expression pattern of RBM8A protein in colon adenocarcinoma and to explore its correlation with patients' clinicopathological characteristics as well as clinical outcomes. Accordingly, we initially found that RBM8A was significantly higher in colon adenocarcinoma tissues compared to adjacent tissues on both mRNA and protein levels. Meanwhile, RBM8A protein was positively correlated with tumor size, depth of invasion, and lymph node metastasis. Furthermore, patients with increased RBM8A expression or positive lymph nodes exhibited a poorer overall survival. Consistently, immunoblotting data showed that RBM8A was higher in SW480 and SW620 colon adenocarcinoma cell lines compared to nontumorous cells. Finally, in vitro and in vivo assays elucidated the role of RBM8A on promoting colon cancer growth by using knockdown strategy. Taken together, our study demonstrated that RBM8A may act as a proto-oncogene, which could be a promising biomarker and therapeutic target in the survival prediction and treatment of colon adenocarcinoma.