Exerts Oncogenic Role in Osteosarcoma by Promoting Cell Proliferation and Epithelial to Mesenchymal Transition.

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are a new class of noncoding RNAs, which serve as crucial regulators in tumor progression, including osteosarcoma (OS). The objective of this study is to uncover the clinical significance and biological role of lncRNA CDKN2B antisense RNA 1 () in OS. Quantitative real time PCR analysis was used to determine the expression of in OS tissues and cell lines. The associations between expression and clinicopathological characteristics of OS patients were assessed by Chi-squared test. CCK-8, colony formation, flow cytometry and transwell assay were utilized to evaluate the effects of knockdown on cell proliferation, cell cycle, migration and invasion. The protein expression associated with cell cycle and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) was measured by western blotting. was found to be markedly up-regulated in OS tissues and cell lines. Clinical data further demonstrated highly expressed tended to be strongly positively correlated with tumor size, distant metastasis and TNM stage. Loss-of-function of leaded to inhibited cell proliferation and induced cell cycle G0/G1 phase arrest. In addition, knockdown significantly suppressed OS cells migration and invasion. Mechanistically, knockdown in OS cells suppressed the expression of CDK4 and Cyclin D1, as well as EMT, as demonstrated by elevated levels of epithelial markers (E-cadherin) and downregulation of mesenchymal markers (vimentin and N-cadherin). Taken together, our findings suggest that represents a potential therapeutic target for OS.