Affiliations: Department of General Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of USTC, Hefei, Anhui, China
Correspondence:
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Corresponding author: Qiang Huang, Department of General Surgery, Anhui Provincal Hospital, No.17 Lujiang Road, Hefei, Anhui 230000, China. Tel./Fax: +86 551 62283114; E-mail: xi108luankaosousu@163.com.
Abstract: BACKGROUNDS: Previous studies have showed that long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are critical regulators in many cancers. The aim of this study is to investigate the clinical role and functional effects of long non-coding RNA SNHG14 in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). METHODS: The expression of SNHG14 in 58 pairs of pancreatic cancer tissues and adjacent normal tissues was detected by quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) analysis. The correlations between SNHG14 expression and PDAC patients’ clinicopathological characteristics and prognosis were statistically assessed. Cell counting kit-8 (CCK8) and transwell cell invasion assays were employed to detect the capacities of cell proliferation and cell invasion. The western blot analysis was used to detected the expression of E-cadherin and Vimentin. RESULTS: In the study, we found that SNHG14 expression was higher in PDAC tissue compared to adjacent normal tissues by qRT-PCR analysis. Higher SNHG14 expression was significantly associated with advanced TNM stage and positive lymph node metastasis in PDAC patients. Furthermore, we demonstrated that higher SNHG14 expression acted as a poor predictor in PDAC patients compared with lower SNHG14 expression. Moreover, we showed that higher SNHG14 expression promoted cell proliferation, cell colony formation and cell invasion ability in PDAC. Upregulation of SNHG14 expression promoted cell invasion by affecting E-cadherin expression via interacting with EZH2. CONCLUSIONS: Thus, these results indicated that SNHG14 expression acts as a prognostic maker for PDAC and potential target of PDAC treatment.
Keywords: Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, long non-coding RNA, SNHG14, EZH2, E-cadherin
