Abstract
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignancies and causes poor outcome. Dysregulation of long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) is involved in HCC. Upregulation of the lncRNA PCNAP1 has been reported to promote HBV-infectious HCC growth, but its clinical significance and underlying mechanisms in HCC development remain unclear. Here, we report that PCNAP1 expression is increased in both HBV-infectious and noninfectious HCC tissues compared with matched normal tissues, and its upregulation correlates with poor survival rates of HCC patients. Furthermore, we found that PCNAP1 promotes HCC cell proliferation through acting as a competitive endogenous RNA (ceRNA) to sponge miR-340-5p, which has been reported to directly inhibit ATF7 expression in HCC cells. Moreover, the PCNAP1/miR-340-5p/ATF7 signaling associates with the poor survival rates of HCC patients. Collectively, our findings suggest that the PCNAP1/miR-340-5p/ATF7 signaling may be a potential biomarker for the prognosis of HCC patients and a potential therapeutic target for HCC.
Highlights
Liver cancer is the fifth leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States in 2019, with 42,030 estimated new cases and 31,780 estimated deaths [1]
Feng et al reported that long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) PCNAP1 is associated with hepatitis B virus (HBV)-infectious Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients and acts as a competitive endogenous RNA to sponge miR-154, regulating the expression of PCNA, which interacts with HBV cccDNA, enhancing HCC growth
PCNAP1 expression was not significantly different between noninfectious normal tissue and HBV-infectious normal tissue (Figure 1(d)). ese suggest that PCNAP1 expression is increased in noninfectious and HBV-infectious HCC tissues in turn, compared with the matched normal tissue, and PCNAP1 may be associated with HBV infection in HCC
Summary
Liver cancer is the fifth leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States in 2019, with 42,030 estimated new cases and 31,780 estimated deaths [1]. Via exploration for a decade, lncRNAs have been shown to be involved in many kinds of human diseases, including almost all types of cancers. LncRNAs participate in regulating multiple phenotypes of tumor cells, such as cell proliferation [7], migration [8], invasion [9], adhesion [10], and stem celllike properties [11]. LncTCF7 promotes self-renewal of human liver cancer stem cells [12]; lncRNA-ATB promotes the invasion metastasis cascade in HCC [13]. Feng et al reported that lncRNA PCNAP1 is associated with HBV-infectious HCC patients and acts as a competitive endogenous RNA (ceRNA) to sponge miR-154, regulating the expression of PCNA, which interacts with HBV cccDNA, enhancing HCC growth. The clinical significance of PCNA and its regulatory mechanism except for HBV remain unclear
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