A Novel lncRNA HOXC-AS3 Acts as a miR-3922-5p Sponge to Promote Breast Cancer Metastasis

Abstract

Purpose: The function of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNA) in breast cancer metastasis remains largely unknown. In this work, the role of HOXC-AS3 in breast cancer progression was investigated.

Methods: By using Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) Database, we investigated the expression of HOXC-AS3 in breast cancer and explored the association between HOXC-AS3 expression and prognosis. Then, we studied the biological function of HOXC-AS3 in cell migration and invasion both in vitro and in vivo. Furthermore, the target miRNA of HOXC-AS3, and the target mRNA of miR-3922-5p were proved.

Results: HOXC-AS3 is aberrantly overexpressed in breast cancers especially the HER2⁺ type. Moreover, high expression of HOXC-AS3 has a relationship with poor clinical outcomes of breast cancer. In addition, HOXC-AS3 regulates cell Invasion and migration both in vitro and in vivo. Our results demonstrated that miR-3922-5p was a direct target of HOXC-AS3, and PPP1R1A was a target of miR-3922-5p in breast cancer.

Conclusions: The novel lncRNA HOXC-AS3 acts as a miR-3922-5p sponge to upregulate PPP1R1A protein expression, and thus results in promoting breast cancer metastasis. HOXC-AS3 could be a novel therapeutic target for breast cancer therapeutics.

Keywords:

• HOXC-AS3
• breast cancer
• metastasis
• miR-3922-5p
• PPP1R1A

Declaration of interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Shanghai municipal medical and health discipline construction projects [Grant No. 2017ZZ02015], Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [Grant No. 22120180402], Key Medical discipline Project of Ningbo [Grant No. 2016-b05], Ningbo Natural Science Foundation, China [Grant No. 2017A610163] and Ningbo Natural Science Foundation, China [Grant No. 2019A610316].