The Functional Study Of Long Noncoding RNA WFDC21P In Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC)is a malignant tumor that is associated with multiple genes,multiple factors,and with complex pathological mechanism.Long noncoding RNAs(IncRNAs)are a class of long transcripts that lack protein-coding potential,and play vital roles in diverse diseases.Importantly,they are involved in the regulations of biological processes of cancer cells,including cell proliferation,metastasis,and invasion.WFDC21P is one of IncRNAs.Our previous study found that the expression level of WFDC21P displays a positive correlation with that of Nur77 in HCC cell lines.Nur77,as a transcription factor,binds to its DNA response elements on the WFDC21P promoter to activate WFDC21P transcription activity,thereby abrogating the growth of HCC cell and tumorigenesis through suppresses glycolysis.However,whether WFDC2IP also influence the metastasis of HCC cells is still unknown.In the current study,first,WFDC21P was overexpressed in HCC cells by lentivirus infection.By using cell scratch and transwell cell migration/invation assays,we found that the migration and invasion ability of HCC cells in the overexpressed WFDC21P group were significantly reduced as compared with the control group,which verified the ability of WFDC21P to inhibit the migration and invasion of HCC cells.Conversely,knockdown of WFDC21P promoted the invasion and migration of HCC cells.Second,the expression of WFDC21P in clinical hepatocellular carcinoma and para-carcinoma tissue samples was detected by RT-qPCR and the results showed that the expression of WFDC21P was negatively-correlated with the malignant degree of hepatocellular carcinoma.Moreover,down-regulated expression of WFDC21P was associated with poor prognosis of HCC patients.Furthermore,we found that small molecular compound Csn-B,an agonist of Nur77,could inhibit the proliferation of HCC cells by upregulating the expression of WFDC21P in a Nur77-dependent manner.When WFDC21P was knocked down,the inhibition effect of Csn-B on cell proliferation was attenuated.To sum up,we not only found the new function of long non-coding RNA-WFDC21P in HCC,but also found that Csn-B can inhibit the occurrence and development of HCC by modulating WFDC21P expression through Nur77 mediation.Our study opens up new ideas and provides new targets for the development of new clinical therapeutic drugs against HCC.