Increased expression of lncRNA HULC indicates a poor prognosis and promotes cell metastasis in osteosarcoma

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are aberrantly expressed in many diseases including cancer. LncRNA HULC (highly up-regulated in liver cancer) has recently been revealed to be involved in hepatocellular carcinoma development and progression. However, the role and function of HULC in human osteosarcoma remains unknown.

LncRNA HULC expression in osteosarcoma tissues and cell lines was detected by quantitative real-time PCR. Then, the association of HULC level with survival of osteosarcoma patients was performed by the Kaplan-Meier and Cox proportional regression analyses. Furthermore, the effects of HULC on tumorigenicity of osteosarcoma cells were evaluated by in vitro assays.

In the present study, we demonstrated that HULC was significantly up-regulated in osteosarcoma tissues and cell lines compared with normal controls, and over-expression of HULC was correlated with clinical stage and distant metastasis. Moreover, higher HULC expression was associated with shorter overall survival of osteosarcoma patients. Furthermore, decreased expression of HULC markedly suppressed osteosarcoma cell proliferation, migration, and invasion.

Our results indicated that HULC is a novel molecule involved in osteosarcoma progression, which may provide a new marker of poor prognosis and a potential therapeutic target for osteosarcoma intervention.