The present study demonstrated that the expression of PVT1 in CRC cell lines was higher than that in normal colon mucosal cell lines. Using GEO database analysis and the measurement of clinical samples, it was revealed that CRC patients with high PVT1 expression demonstrated poor OS. Multivariate analysis indicated that high PVT1 expression is an independent risk factor for patients with CRC. In addition, PVT1 knockdown suppressed the proliferation, invasion and metastasis of CRC cells in vitro, which were associated with decreasing vimentin, cyclin D1 and cyclin-dependent kinase 4 expression and enhanced E-cadherin expression. The results of the present study suggest that PVT1 may serve a critical role in CRC progression and metastasis and may serve as a potential prognostic biomarker for CRC.