The LINC00922 aggravates ovarian cancer progression via sponging miR-361-3p

Long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) LINC00922 has been reported to promote tumorigenesis of lung and breast cancer. However, the functions and mechanisms of LINC00922 in ovarian cancer (OC) remain unclarified. The current study aims to clarify the detailed functions and underlying mechanisms of LINC00922 in the progression of OC.

LINC00922 expression in OC tissues and cells was identified by a comprehensive strategy of data miming, computational biology and quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) experiment. In vitro CCK-8, wound healing, transwell invasion, western blotting and in vivo tumorigenesis assays LINC00922 were conducted to evaluate the functions of LINC00992. Subsequently, bioinformatics technology and dual luciferase reporter assay were performed to confirm the between miR-361-3p and LINC00922 or CLDN1. Finally, rescue experiments were performed to confirm whether LINC00922 effect functions of OC cells through regulation of miR-361-3p.

LINC00922 was significantly upregulated in OC tissues and cell lines, which is significantly positively corelated with the poor prognosis of patients with OC. LINC00922 knockdown inhibited proliferation and tumorigenesis of OC cells in vitro and vivo. In addition, LINC00922 knockdown suppressed migration, invasion, and EMT of OC cells in vitro. Mechanically, LINC00922 could competitively bind with miR-361-3p to relieve the repressive effect of miR-361-3p on its target gene CLDN1 in OC cells. In addition, silencing miR-361-3p promoted OC cell proliferation, migration, invasion, EMT and Wnt/β-catenin signaling, while LINC00922 knockdown inhibited Wnt/β-catenin signaling by upregulating miR-361-3p. Rescue experiments revealed that LINC00922 knockdown inhibited OC cell proliferation, migration, invasion and EMT by regulating miR-361-3p.

This study suggested that LINC00922 could competitively bind with miR-361-3p to promote the CLDN1 expression and activate Wnt/β-catenin signaling in OC progression, which providing a promising therapeutically target for OC.