LncRNA AWPPH and miRNA-21 regulates cancer cell proliferation and chemosensitivity in triple-negative breast cancer by interacting with each other.

Long-non-coding RNAs (lncRNA) AWPPH promotes the progression of liver and bladder cancer, indicating its oncogenic role. The current study aimed to explore the involvement of AWPPH in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). In the current study, we found that plasma levels of lncRNA AWPPH and microRNA-21 (miRNA-21) were upregulated in patients with TNBC than in healthy controls, and the upregulation of plasma lncRNA AWPPH and miRNA-21 distinguished early-stage patients with TNBC from healthy controls. Plasma levels of lncRNA AWPPH and miRNA-21 were significantly and positively correlated in both patients with TNBC and healthy controls. LncRNA AWPPH and miRNA-21 overexpression led to promoted cancer cells proliferation and improved cancer cell viability under carboplatin treatment, while lncRNA AWPPH small interfering RNA (siRNA) silencing played an opposite role. In addition, miRNA-21 overexpression attenuated the effects of lncRNA AWPPH siRNA silencing on of cancer cell behaviors. LncRNA AWPPH overexpression led to upregulated miRNA-21 in TNBC cells, while miRNA-21 overexpression also led to significantly upregulated lncRNA AWPPH expression. Therefore, lncRNA AWPPH and miRNA-21 may regulate cancer cell proliferation and chemosensitivity in TNBC by interacting with each other.