Gene Amplification Driven-Long Noncoding RNA SNHG17 Regulates Cell Proliferation and Migration in Human Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

Background: Lung cancer is the most common cancer all around the world with high morbidity and mortality. Long non-coding RNA(LncRNA) has been reported to be a critical role in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) proliferation and migration. Methods: In the present study, we analyzed the TCGA data to figure out the expression of SNHG17 in NSCLC. RACE was used to acquired the exact sequence of SNHG17. We modulated SNHG17 expression by RNA interference and a series of functional assays such as MTT, transwell and EdUstaining assays were performed. Flow cytometry was used to explore the involvement of SNHG17 in NSCLC cell apoptosis The global gene expression profile regulated by SNHG17 in NSCLC cells was acquired through RNA-Seq assays and several potential downstream genes were confirmed by qRT-PCR. Results: We found that lncRNA SNHG17 was up-regulated in NSCLC driven by the amplification ofcopy number,indicating the special role of SNHG17 in NSCLC.Full exact length of SNHG17 was determined. Knockdown of SNHG17 inhibited proliferation, migration and promoted apoptosis of NSCLC cells. We acquired the global gene expression profile regulated by SNHG17 in A549. We found 637 genes were up-regulated while 581 genes were down-regulated. We selected three genes(FOXA1, XAF1, BIK) which were closely releated to proliferation and apoptosis and confirmed their altered expression in A549 and PC-9 treated by si-SNHG17. Conclusion: Our findings indicated gene amplification driven-long noncoding RNA SNHG17 promotes cell proliferation and migration in NSCLC,suggesting its potential value as biomarker in NSCLC. Funding: This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81672307, 81703056, 81702266;), the Medical Innovation Team Foundation of the Jiangsu Provincial Enhancement Health Project (No. CXTDA2017021), the “333 high class Talented Man Project” (No.BRA2016509), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2017M610339) and Jiangsu Planned Projects for Postdoctoral ResearchFunds (1701041A). Declaration of Interest: None.