LncRNA HOXC-AS1 promotes nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) progression by sponging miR-4651 and subsequently upregulating FOXO6
Zhiyuan Tang, Xianhai Zeng, Juanjuan Li, Shuqi Qiu, Hailiang Zhao, Zaixing Wang, Yiqing Zheng
Abstract
The incidence rate of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is the highest among the malignant tumors of otorhinolaryngology, posing a huge burden to public health. Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) exert an important role in tumorigenesis and the progression of various cancers. The present study found that HOXC-AS1 was highly expressed in NPC and in NPC cell lines, suggesting a critical role of HOXC-AS1 in NPC progression. In addition, the abundance of HOXC-AS1 was negatively correlated with the prognosis of NPC. To molecularly dissect the mechanism of HOXC-AS1 in NPC progression, we knocked down the expression of HOXC-AS1 in HNE1 and C666-1 cells. Then, we employed CCK8, colony-formation experiment and Transwell to investigate how the cell performed when HOXC-AS1 was knocked down. It could be observed that HOXC-AS1 knockdown decreases cell proliferation, migration and invasion, but induces cell apoptosis in NPC. We found that HOXC-AS1 could sponge miR-4651 subsequently binding FOXO6 and inhibiting its expression. Therefore, HOXC-AS1/miR-4651/FOXO6 may form a competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) network that promotes NPC progression. In conclusion, our study demonstrates that HOXC-AS1 promotes NPC progression by sponging miR-4651 and regulating FOXO6 expression, thus providing potential pharmaceutical targets for developing new NPC treatments.