Colorectal cancer (
CRC
) is the third most commonly diagnosed cancer in both men and women in the USA. However, the underlying molecular mechanisms that drive
CRC
tumorigenesis are still not clear. Several studies have reported that long noncoding
RNA
s (lnc
RNA
s) have important roles in tumor development. Here, we undertook a transcriptome microarray analysis in 6 pairs of
CRC
tissues and their corresponding adjacent normal tissues. A total of 1705 differentially expressed lnc
RNA
s were detected in
CRC
tissues at stages I/
II
and
III
/
IV
(fold change greater than or equal to 2 or less than or equal to 0.5). Among them, we found that the lnc
RNA
lung cancer‐associated transcript 1 (
LUCAT
1
) was upregulated in
CRC
tissues and was closely associated with poor overall survival of
CRC
patients, through analysis of clinical data and The Cancer Genome Atlas. Functional studies indicated that
LUCAT
1
promoted
CRC
cell proliferation, apoptosis, migration, and invasion in vitro and in vivo. Furthermore, knockdown of
LUCAT
1
rendered
CRC
cells hypersensitive to oxaliplatin treatment. Mechanistically, bioinformatic analysis indicated that low expression of
LUCAT
1
was associated with the p53 signaling pathway. Chromatin isolation by
RNA
purification followed by mass spectrometry and
RNA
immunoprecipitation revealed that
LUCAT
1
bound with
UBA
52
, which encodes ubiquitin and 60S ribosomal protein L40 (
RPL
40). We found that
RPL
40 functions in the ribosomal protein‐
MDM
2‐p53 pathway to regulate p53 expression. Taken together, our findings indicate that suppression of
LUCAT
1
induces
CRC
cell cycle arrest and apoptosis by binding
UBA
52
and activating the
RPL
40‐
MDM
2‐p53 pathway. These results implicate
LUCAT
1
as a potential prognostic biomarker and therapeutic target for
CRC
.