AUTHOR=Liu Haiming , Wu Nan , Zhang Zhe , Zhong XiaoDan , Zhang Hao , Guo Hao , Nie Yongzhan , Liu Yuanning 

TITLE=Long Non-coding RNA LINC00941 as a Potential Biomarker Promotes the Proliferation and Metastasis of Gastric Cancer

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Genetics

VOLUME=10

YEAR=2019

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/genetics/articles/10.3389/fgene.2019.00005

DOI=10.3389/fgene.2019.00005

ISSN=1664-8021

ABSTRACT=<p>Gastric cancer (GC) is a considerable global health burden. Accumulating evidence suggests that long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are aberrantly expressed in many cancers and play important roles in GC. However, only a few lncRNAs have been functionally characterized. In this study, we identified that long intergenic non-protein coding RNA 941 (<italic>LINC00941</italic>) is a potential biomarker for diagnosis and prognosis from the cancer genome atlas (TCGA), and we found that the expression of <italic>LINC00941</italic> is associated with tumor depth and distant metastasis in GC. Furthermore, functional enrichment analysis of <italic>LINC00941</italic> co-expression network demonstrated that <italic>LINC00941</italic> might be an essential regulator of tumor metastasis and cancer cell proliferation. To validate our findings, we utilized the loss-of-function analysis to reveal the biological function of <italic>LINC00941</italic> in GC cells. Loss-of-function analysis revealed that silence of <italic>LINC00941</italic> inhibits GC cells proliferation, migration, and invasion <italic>in vitro</italic> and modulates tumor growth <italic>in vivo</italic>. Our findings confirmed that <italic>LINC00941</italic> plays an important oncogenic function in GC and may serve as a potential biomarker for diagnosis and prognosis of GC.</p>