fa علوم پایه پزشکی Basic medical sciences پژوهشي Research <strong>Background and objectives:</strong> Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is the most widespread type of esophageal cancer. LncRNA <em>TUG1</em> was first identified in a genomic screening study for the treatment of taurine in retinal cells. This study aimed at analyzing <em>TUG1</em> expression in ESCC tissues collected from an Iranian population of patients. Bioinformatics study was also conducted for better understanding the function of this lnc-RNA.<br> <strong>Methods</strong>: We examined the expression of <em>TUG1</em> in 31 pairs of ESCC tissues and adjacent non-cancerous tissues by qRT-PCR. Bioinformatics analysis was conducted using various databases. Student&rsquo;s t-test was performed using SPSS software (version 16.0) to evaluate the difference in <em>TUG1</em> expression between ESCC and adjacent non-cancerous tissues.<span dir="RTL"></span><br> <strong>Results:</strong> <em>TUG1</em> expression level in ESCC tissues was significantly higher than that in the adjacent non-cancerous tissues (P=0.04).<br> <strong>Conclusion: </strong><em>TUG1</em> is upregulated in ESCC, which may be related to history of smoking ESCC, EZH2, Gene expression, Long non-coding RNA, TUG1, SUZ12 17 26 http://jcbr.goums.ac.ir/browse.php?a_code=A-10-26-17&slc_lang=fa&sid=1 Yasaman Fateri 0000-0001-7747-1888 No Department of Biology, Gonbad Kavous University, Gonbad Kavous, Iran Eisa Jorjani eisa_jorjani@yahoo.com 0000-0001-7681-1799 Yes Department of Biology, Gonbad Kavous University, Gonbad Kavous, Iran Abdolvahab Moradi 0000-0003-2877-4190 No Golestan Research Center of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Golestan University of Medical Sciences, Gorgan, Iran Hosein Sabouri 0000-0003-4128-7952 No Department of Plant Production, Gonbad Kavous University, Gonbad Kavous, Iran Halime Rahimnia 0000-0002-2521-1125 No Department of Biology, Gonbad Kavous University, Gonbad Kavous, Iran Shabbou Bahramian 0000-0002-5529-3993 No Golestan Research Center of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Golestan University of Medical Sciences, Gorgan, Iran Zahra Roohineghad No Golestan Research Center of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Golestan University of Medical Sciences, Gorgan, Iran Encieh Delshad No Golestan Research Center of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Golestan University of Medical Sciences, Gorgan, Iran