The lncRNA HNF1A-AS1 is a negative prognostic factor and promotes tumorigenesis in osteosarcoma

Recent studies have revealed that long noncoding RNA HNF1A-antisense 1 (HNF1A-AS1) plays an important role in the development of several human malignancy entities. However, the expression and function of HNF1A-AS1 in the carcinogenesis and development of osteosarcoma remains unknown. In this study, we detected the HNF1A-AS1 levels in human osteosarcoma tissues and cell lines by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR), and investigated its role in osteosarcoma by using in vitro assays. Our study showed that HNF1A-AS1 expression was significantly up-regulated in human osteosarcoma tissues and cell lines compared with their normal counterparts, and its expression level was positively correlated with the distance metastasis (P = 0.009) and tumour stage (P = 0.019). Moreover, Kaplan-Meier curves with the log-rank test showed that higher expression of HNF1A-AS1 conferred a significantly poorer survival and multivariate Cox proportional hazards analysis revealed that HNF1A-AS1 was an independent risk factor of overall survival. In addition, the expression of HNF1A-AS1 in serum is correlated with patients' status and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis demonstrated that HNF1A-AS1 could distinguish patients with osteosarcoma from healthy individuals (the area under curve 0.849, P < 0.001). Furthermore, in vitro knockdown of HNF1A-AS1 by siRNA significantly inhibited cell proliferation and G₁ /S transition, and suppressed migration and invasion by reducing the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) program in osteosarcoma cells. Taken together, our data suggested that HNF1A-AS1 is a novel molecule involved in osteosarcoma progression, which may provide as a potential diagnostic, prognostic biomarker and therapeutic target.