Abstract: Objective To investigate the expression of long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) LINC00239 in colorectal cancer and adjacent normal tissues, colorectal cancer cell lines and human normal colorectal mucosa cell lines, and to analyze the effects of LINC00239 on the proliferation, invasion and metastasis of colorectal cancer HCT116 cells. Methods GEO and TCGA databases were used to explore the expression of LINC00239 in colorectal cancer and adjacent normal tissues. The relative levels of LINC00239 in colorectal cancer and adjacent normal tissues were measured by qRT-PCR. GEPIA database was used to analyze the effects of LINC00239 expression on the disease-free survival rate of colorectal cancer patients after surgery. The cell counting kit-8 assay and Transwell assay were used to detect the effects of LINC00239 knocking down on the proliferation and metastasis of colorectal cancer cells. Results Compared with adjacent normal tissues, the level of LINC00239 was significantly up-regulated in colorectal cancer tissues (P<0.001). The low LINC00239 expression group presented better disease-free survival than the high LINC00239 expression group(P=0.033). Compared with human normal colorectal mucosa cell lines, the expression of LINC00239 in three colorectal cancer cell lines was significantly up-regulated (P<0.05), where the expression of LINC00239 was the highest in HCT116 cells (P<0.001). Knocking down of LINC00239 expression significantly inhibited the proliferation (P<0.001), migration (P<0.001) and invasion capability (P<0.001) of colorectal cancer HCT116 cells. Conclusions LINC00239 is remarkably up-regulated in colorectal cancer tissues and colorectal cancer cell lines. Knocking down of LINC00239 can suppress the proliferation and metastasis of colorectal cancer HCT116 cells.