Jing-Yuan Fang, Jie Xu and colleagues report the identification of a long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) involved in gastric cancer tumor progression (Cancer Res. doi:10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-14-0686; 2 October 2014). The authors analyzed the mRNA and lncRNA transcriptional profiles of 10 pairs of gastric cancer tumor and normal samples and identified 659 significantly upregulated and 709 downregulated lncRNAs in tumors. One upregulated lncRNA, uc002kmd.1, was selected for further study. Ectopic expression of mutant p53 (Arg248Trp) led to increased expression of uc002kmd.1 (renamed GAPLINC, for gastric adenocarcinoma predictive long intergenic noncoding RNA), and ChIP assays confirmed physical binding. Upregulation of GAPLINC was associated with shorter survival time in a set of 90 patients with gastric cancer. Further mechanistic testing of GAPLINC showed that this lncRNA has a key role in the proliferation and invasion of gastric cancer cells, with its effects mediated via the upregulation of CD44 expression. The results suggest that GAPLINC acts as a microRNA 'sponge' by competing with CD44 mRNA for binding to miR-211-3p.