Silencing of LncRNA HULC Enhances Chemotherapy Induced Apoptosis in Human Gastric Cancer.

BACKGROUND

Gastric cancer (GC) is one of the most common cancers in the world; however, chemoresistance greatly decreases the efficacy of therapy in gastric cancer. Long noncoding RNAs (IncRNAs) participate in a variety of biological processes, and we hypothesize that lncRNA HULC regulates the multidrug resistance in GC treatment.

METHODS

We obtained GC tissue samples from 42 GC patients and detected the expression level of HULC in the plasma and tissues via qRT-PCR. The relationship between HULC expression and survival rate was confirmed by Kaplan-Meier survival analysis. We verified the expression of HULC in GC cell lines via qRT-PCR, and the function of HULC was detected via flow cytometry assay and CCK-8 assay.

RESULTS

HULC was highly expressed in the plasma and tissues of the GC patients compared with controls, with HULC high expression indicating lower survival rate. HULC knockdown enhanced cisplatin-induced apoptosis in GC cells.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results suggest that silencing lncRNA HULC could enhance chemotherapy induced apoptosis in GC cells, which could provide a novel approach for therapeutic strategies.