Copyright
©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jan 7, 2021; 27(1): 55-68
Published online Jan 7, 2021. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v27.i1.55
Long non-coding ribonucleic acid W5 inhibits progression and predicts favorable prognosis in hepatocellular carcinoma
Guang-Lin Lei, Hong-Xia Fan, Cheng Wang, Yan Niu, Tie-Ling Li, Ling-Xiang Yu, Zhi-Xian Hong, Jin Yan, Xi-Liang Wang, Shao-Geng Zhang, Ming-Ji Ren, Peng-Hui Yang
Guang-Lin Lei, Hong-Xia Fan, Ling-Xiang Yu, Zhi-Xian Hong, Jin Yan, Shao-Geng Zhang, Peng-Hui Yang, Fifth Medical Center of Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing 100039, China
Hong-Xia Fan, Yan Niu, Ming-Ji Ren, College of Basic Medicine, Inner Mongolia Medical University, Hohhot 010110, Inner Mongolia, China
Cheng Wang, Tie-Ling Li, First Medical Center of Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing 100853, China
Xi-Liang Wang, Peng-Hui Yang, State Key Laboratory of Pathogens and Biosecurity, Beijing Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology, Beijing 100071, China
Author contributions: Zhang SG and Yang PH contributed to conception and intellectual input; Lei GL, Fan HX, Li TL, Hong ZX and Ren MJ contributed to designing and performing the experiments; Fan HX and Lei GL contributed to sample collection and manuscript drafting; Yan J and Wang XL contributed to statistical analyses and data interpretation; all authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Supported by National High Technology Research and Development Program of China, No. 2015AA020924; Natural Science Foundation of Beijing, China, No. 7202194 and No. 7162185.
Institutional animal care and use committee statement: All animal experiments were conducted with the approval of the Fifth Medical Center of Chinese PLA General Hospital’s Animal Care and Use Committee.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors declare no financial or commercial conflicts of interest.
Data sharing statement: All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Peng-Hui Yang, MD, Professor, Fifth Medical Center of Chinese PLA General Hospital, No. 100 Xisihuan Zhong Lu, Fengtai District, Beijing 100039, China. yph3022017@163.com
Received: August 25, 2020
Peer-review started: August 25, 2020
First decision: September 12, 2020
Revised: October 27, 2020
Accepted: November 13, 2020
Article in press: November 13, 2020
Published online: January 7, 2021
BACKGROUND
Accumulating evidence has revealed that several long non-coding ribonucleic acids (lncRNAs) are crucial in the progress of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).
AIM
To classify a long non-coding RNA, i.e., lncRNA W5, and to determine the clinical significance and potential roles of lncRNA W5 in HCC.
METHODS
The results showed that lncRNA W5 expression was significantly downregulated in HCC cell lines and tissues. Analysis of the association between lncRNA W5 expression levels and clinicopathological features suggested that low lncRNA W5 expression was related to large tumor size (P < 0.01), poor histological grade (P < 0.05) and serious portal vein tumor thrombosis (P < 0.05). Furthermore, Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed that low expression of lncRNA W5 predicts poor overall survival (P = 0.016).
RESULTS
Gain-of-loss function experiments, including cell counting kit8 assays, colony formation assays, and transwell assays, were performed in vitro to investigate the biological roles of lncRNA W5. In vitro experiments showed that ectopic overexpression of lncRNA W5 suppressed HCC cell proliferation, migration and invasion; conversely, silencing of lncRNA W5 promoted cell proliferation, migration and invasion. In addition, acting as a tumor suppressor gene in HCC, lncRNA W5 inhibited the growth of HCC xenograft tumors in vivo.
CONCLUSION
These results showed that lncRNA W5 is down-regulated in HCC, and it may suppress HCC progression and predict poor clinical outcomes in patients with HCC. LncRNA W5 may serve as a potential HCC prognostic biomarker in addition to a therapeutic target.
Core Tip: Our results showed that the expression of long non-coding ribonucleic acid (lncRNA) W5 was considerably reduced in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tissues, which suppressed proliferation, migration and invasion of tumor cells in vitro. It was also shown that low expression of lncRNA W5 correlated with tumor progression and poor prognosis. Furthermore, manipulation of lncRNA W5 expression affected the biological behavior of HCC. These results suggest that lncRNA W5 may serve as a tumor suppressor in the development and progression of HCC, and has the potential to be a diagnostic and therapeutic target in the clinical management of HCC.
