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Gastric cancer is one of the most common malignant gastrointestinal tumors whose morbidity and mortality account for the second and third place respectively in malignant tumors in China. As an important participant in tumor biology, the abnormal expression of long non-coding RNA (lncRNAs) in cancer cells is closely related to the occurrence and development of tumors and plays the role of oncogenes or tumor suppressor genes. In this study, we identified a novel lncRNA NFIA antisense RNA 1 (NFIA-AS1) and explored its role and clinical significance in gastric cancer. Real-time quantitative PCR was performed to detect the expression of NFIA-AS1 in tumor tissues and corresponding normal tissues from 42 pairs of gastric cancer samples. The lower expression of NFIA-AS1 was significantly associated with larger tumor size, lower histological grade, and advanced TNM stage. Kaplan-meier analysis showed that NFIA-AS1 expression could be used as an independent predictor of overall survival. We also demonstrated that overexpression of NFIA-AS1 significantly inhibited the proliferation of gastric cancer cells through affecting p16 levels. In conclusion, our results suggest that the lncRNA NFIA-AS1 may play the role of tumor suppressor gene, and serve as a biomarker for prognosis or progression of gastric cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]